Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

PAVILION 8:00 PM THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 2023 CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA TEDDY ABRAMS, conductor JEFFREY KAHANE, piano COLE Megalopolis ** G. KAHANE Heirloom for piano and chamber orchestra ** Guitars in the Attic My Grandmother Knew Alban Berg VERA’S CHICKEN-POWERED TRANSIT MACHINE Jeffrey Kahane –Intermission– PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5 Andante Allegro marcato Adagio Allegro giocoso ** First performance by the CSO and at Ravinia Tonight’s concert is performed in memory of Keene H. Addington II . TJ COLE (b.1993) Megalopolis Scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two tenor trombones and bass trombone, tuba, four percussionists, piano/celesta, harp, and strings TJ Cole grew up in Lawrenceville, GA, before studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy with music theorist/composer John Boyle Jr. and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Phila- delphia with Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, and Richard Danielpour, completing a bach- elor’s degree in composition in 2017. While at Curtis, they engaged music in community action projects such as orchestrating Ranaan Meyer’s The World We All Deserve through Music , participating in First Person Arts’ musical story slam, and performing and of- fering songwriting workshops for residents of Project HOME, a community helping others break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. Cole pursued additional composition lessons with Samuel Adler at the Freie Universität Berlin and participated in composition pro- grams at the Lake Champlain Chamber Mu- sic Festival, Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and New Emerging Artists Festival. Cole has received commissions from several prominent organizations including the Balti- more Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Music in May Festival, Nashville in Harmony, New Ha- ven Symphony Orchestra, and Time for Three. Their composition prizes include the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2014, 2020) and ASCAP Foundation Leo Kaplan Award (2020). During the 2022– 23 concert season, Cole served as one of the inaugural members of the Louisville Orches- tra’s Creators Corps. The Louisville Orchestra under Teddy Abrams premiered Phenomenal of the Earth —a concerto for synthesizer and orchestra inspired by the natural environ- ment around Louisville, especially Bernheim Forest—on March 4, 2023, as part of the Fes- tival of American Music. Cole appeared as synthesizer soloist in that performance, a fa- miliar role from their work with the Philadel- phia-based band Twin Pixie, whose music “[invokes] connections between queerness, pop culture, and the supernatural.” Megalopolis originated during Cole’s years at the Curtis Institute of Music: the Curtis Sym- phony Orchestra gave the first performance onApril 6, 2013.This dynamic orchestral score also introduced Cole to Louisville Orches- tra audiences as part of the Opening Night: Swing, Swagger & Sway program on Septem- ber 17, 2022, conducted by Teddy Abrams. The LO and Abrams also programmed Meg- alopolis on their July 2023 “In Harmony—The Commonwealth Tour” program. GABRIEL KAHANE (b.1981) Heirloom for piano and chamber orchestra Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two B-flat, one E-flat, and one bass clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, bass trombone, timpani, two percussionists (vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales, tubular bells, marimba, xylophone, two double bass bows, crash cymbal, cymbals a2, hi-hat, splash cymbal, tam-tam, tambourine, mounted tambourine, metal hardware, finger cymbals, slapstick, temple blocks, guiro, snare drum, floor tom, kick drum, and bass drum), harp, strings, and solo piano Gabriel Kahane is a musical storyteller who spins tales and confronts social issues as a singer-songwriter and concert composer. TJ Cole (2022) His Craigslistlieder , a 2006 song cycle based on actual, quirky ads on Craigslist, attracted much notoriety when Broadway singer Audra McDonald added it to her concert repertoire. While serving as composer-in-residence for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra during the 2012–13 concert season, Kahane created Ga- briel’s Guide to the 48 States , based on Federal Writers’ Project pamphlets published during the Great Depression. Performing artists and organizations such as the Attacca Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, pianist Anthony DeMare, and Roomful of Teeth have commissioned, performed, and recorded his compositions. After recording four well-received discs as a singer-songwriter, Kahane issued his highly acclaimed album The Ambassador (2014), portraying 10 architectural landmarks in Los Angeles. NPR Music named the track “Em- pire Liquor Mart (9127 S. Figueroa St.)” its Favorite Song of 2014. Kahane has maintained a close associa- tion with the Oregon Symphony. The or- chestra commissioned and premiered his thought-provoking oratorio emergency shel- ter intake form (2018) about poverty and homelessness—later performed in Chicago at the 2019 Grant Park Music Festival; Pattern of the Rail , a suite of six orchestrated songs from his album Book of Travelers (2019); and the one-act folk opera The Right to Be Forgot- ten (2022). The Oregon Symphony appointed Kahane its first Creative Chair in 2019–20. Among other accomplishments, he founded and continues to produce the composer-fo- cused Open Music concert series and Sounds of Home, performances that address import- ant community issues. Over the years, Gabriel resisted writing an extended work for his father, classical pianist Jeffrey Kahane, even when encouraged by close friends such as conductor Eric Jacobsen of The Knights, in part because “I’ve never felt comfortable with large-scale instrumen- tal composition.” A consortium commission from the Aspen Music Festival, Kansas City Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orches- tra, Oregon Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and The Knights eventually per- suaded Kahane to write a concerto for piano and orchestra— Heirloom —in 2019–20. The Kansas City Symphony, conductor Michael Stern, and pianist Jeffrey Kahane gave the world premiere on September 24, 2021. Ga- briel, who has since revised the score twice, has written expansively about this very per- sonal composition: “Tucked away in the northernmost reaches of California sits the Bar 717 Ranch, which, each summer, is transformed into a sleep- away camp on 450 acres of wilderness where, in 1967, two 10-year-old kids named Martha and Jeffrey met. Within a couple of years, they were playing gigs back in Los Angeles in folk rock bands with names like ‘Wilderness’ and ‘The American Revelation.’ They fell in love, broke up, fell in love again. By the time RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 31 – AUGUST 14, 2023 38