Nashville Symphony Celebrates Leonard Bernstein Centennial with Performances of His “Kaddish” Symphony on April 5-6
Tickets start at $20 for program that also includes works by Kurt Weill and Michael Torke
Nashville, Tenn. (March 28, 2019) — As celebrations commemorating Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday continue across the nation, Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony will perform the legendary composer’s moving Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish,” for the first time in the orchestra’s history on April 5-6 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Bernstein’s final symphony, which is dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, will be vividly brought to life by the Nashville Symphony and Chorus, Blair Children’s Chorus and soprano Mary Wilson, with award-winning stage and film actress Laila Robbins serving as narrator. Contemporary American composer Michael Torke’sAdjustable Wrench opens the concerts, followed by Kurt Weill’s Violin Concerto, with Nashville Symphony concertmaster Jun Iwasaki in the soloist role.
Both performances are funded thanks in part to a grant provided by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY.
Great seats are available starting at $20 (while supplies last, additional fees apply), and the Symphony’s Soundcheck program offers $10 tickets to students in K-12, college and grad school.
About the Program
The Third Symphony was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1955, but Bernstein did not begin serious work on the piece until the summer of 1963, during a period of particularly intense concentration. He was still orchestrating the score when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas that fall, and he would go on to dedicate his newly completed symphony to the slain president, conducting the Israel Philharmonic in the world premiere in Tel Aviv in December of 1963.
The Jewish Kaddish prayer sits at the heart of the work, with the composer employing it in each of its three movements. Though often associated with mourning for the dead, the Kaddish is above all an expression of praise and worship for the Creator and contains no actual references to death.
The symphony’s overall structure is a dialogue that both questions and praises God. One of the Bernstein’s key decisions in crafting the piece was to incorporate a significant role for a narrator, which was written originally for his wife, actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre. The narrator’s text juxtaposes praise for the wonder of Creation with despair over humanity’s squandering of its promise, represented by the specter of nuclear annihilation, a particularly urgent topic at the time. More than 50 years after its premiere, the Third Symphony remains a powerful exploration of human spirituality and a transcendent plea for peace.
Like Bernstein, Kurt Weill is highly regarded as a composer for the theater, best-known for The Threepenny Opera and its hit song “Mack The Knife.” But he also produced a number of works for the concert stage, including the Violin Concerto, written in 1924 during a pivotal time in his career. The Violin Concerto features distinctive orchestration – with no strings except for four double basses – and a technically dazzling solo part that provides a striking contrast to the backdrop of wind instruments. The concerto was the last purely instrumental work Weill competed before fleeing Germany in 1933, and though it suffered neglect following its initial success, it contains a fascinating time capsule of 1920s Berlin.
Currently based in Las Vegas, Michael Torke became a fixture on the new music scene in the 1980s, with a style drawing on elements of Minimalism, jazz and popular music, including Chaka Khan and the Talking Heads. Torke originally wrote Adjustable Wrench in 1987 for a chamber ensemble divided into three groups, each comprised of four instruments paired with a keyboard instrument, but he also adapted the score to make it suitable for an orchestra by allowing the string parts to be performed by multiple musicians.
Tickets for Guerrero Conducts Bernstein may be purchased:
- Online at NashvilleSymphony.org/GuerreroConductsBernstein
- Via phone at 615.687.6400
- At the Schermerhorn Symphony Center Box Office, One Symphony Place in downtown Nashville
Program notes, performer bios, a Spotify playlist and audio of Giancarlo Guerrero discussing the program, can be found atNashvilleSymphony.org/GuerreroConductsBernstein.
The GRAMMY® Award-winning Nashville Symphony has earned an international reputation for its innovative programming and its commitment to performing, recording and commissioning works by America’s leading composers. The Nashville Symphony has released 29 recordings on Naxos, which have received 24 GRAMMY® nominations and 13 GRAMMY® Awards, making it one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. The orchestra has also released recordings on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and New West Records, among other labels. With more than 140 performances annually, the orchestra offers a broad range of classical, pops and jazz, and children’s concerts, while its extensive education and community engagement programs reach 60,000 children and adults each year.
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