Melrose Free Press
Oct 22 2004

MSO opens with something new
By Dan Mac Alpine/ melrose@cnc.com

Yoichi Udagawa, musical director of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra,
drew up the program for the orchestra’s season-opening concert a
little like they way a bride prepares for a wedding – something new,
something borrowed, something old or at least older and something
blue.

The something new would be a world-premiere composition by
Gloucester composer Robert Bradshaw.

The something borrowed would be soloist Dennis Alves, borrowed
from his regular gig as trumpet player for the Boston Pops Esplanade
Orchestra.

The something older would be Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

All that’s missing is something blue – unless one counts Alves’
face after he completes one of the challenging trumpet runs in
Alexander Arutunian’s Trumpet Concerto.

The formula follows the successful pattern Udagawa has used
since becoming the MSO’s conductor and musical director. The
ebullient and effervescent Udagawa, who leads his rehearsals with a
smile and an infectious energy that often has him popping up on his
toes, likes to give his players and his audiences a mix of old
favorites, a lost classical nugget and/or something contemporary in
each of his concerts.

Alves’ solo appearance also continues another Udagawa tradition:
attracting solid, professional musicians and singers from as far away
as Japan and as near as Boston to work with his all-volunteer
symphony now in its 87th year, the oldest community symphony in the
nation.

“These aren’t thematic selections,” said Udagawa. “Whenever I
put a program together, I think of what will the audience, what will
I and what will the musicians enjoy. I love to do new pieces. They’re
always a surprise for everyone and it’s fun to do a piece I know
people will enjoy, but isn’t played very much.”

For the new piece, Udagawa chose Bradshaw with whom he has
worked in the Cape Ann Symphony – Udagawa is also the musical
director for that regional symphony.

Udagawa said he gave Bradshaw few parameters for the five-minute
composition.

“The piece had to be within a certain technical ability. We’re
not the BSO,” said Udagawa. “We couldn’t have too much percussion.
You can’t just write anything and it had to be in a style people
could grasp.”

Bradshaw’s composition, the “Fox and the Countryman,” recalls an
Aesop fable of the same name. In the story, the countryman helps the
fox hide from hunters, yet betrays him to the hunters. The Bradshaw
piece follows the story in notes rather than in words.

“I know a lot of people in the ensemble. Many do perform at the
highest professional levels. When writing this piece for this
ensemble, I didn’t feel any limitation,” said Bradshaw. “I didn’t ask
for extremely complex rhythms or extended solos. I also didn’t write
anything less complicated than when I imagined it.”

“He often thinks about stories when he writes,” Udagawa said of
Bradshaw. “This is a very cute piece. Very energetic and playful.
There are some terrific parts for the tympanist to play. Everyone
likes the piece a lot and we are very excited about it. It’s
sophisticated and playful at the same time.”

The Concerto for Trumpet, by Armenian composer Alexander
Arutunian, is also a contemporary piece, especially by classical
music standards. Arutunian, born in 1920, wrote the piece, one of the
few concertos written for trumpet, in 1950. He was a People’s Artist
of the Year in 1970 in the former Soviet Union and the composer uses
Eastern European musical influences and also draws on the works of
contemporary Eastern European composers Shostakovich and, in the
slower sections, a lesser-known composer, Khachaturian.

The concerto combines both fast and slower, romantic movements,
although Arutunian wrote the piece without any breaks among the three
movements. The composer opens the piece with a fast, intense fanfare
run that fads to more lyrical elements that bring in the strings. The
middle section includes a clarinet solo. Arutunian brings in the
whole orchestra for the climax.

“The piece requires the trumpet player to show off everything,”
Udagawa said. “High notes. Fast playing. It requires the full range
of expression from the player. It’s just a great piece. There are so
many great melodies in it.”

Udagawa called the New World Symphony “an old war horse” – the
term he affectionately uses to describe well-known classical pieces.
These works have often permeated popular culture. Their themes are
used in commercials, TV themes and are somehow ubiquitous. The old
war horses often spark a, “Oh, so that’s where that comes from,”
response from audience members.

The New World Symphony, by American immigrant composer, Antonin
Dvorak (1841-1904), likely will provide such a cultural epiphany.

Dvorak came to New York in 1892, lured by art patron Jeanette
Thurber, to head the National Conservatory of Music, which she
founded to help develop American music and especially
African-American composers of the time.

“I am convinced that the future music of this country must be
founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the
foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be
developed in the United States,” wrote Dvorak.

Thus, the New World Symphony combines influences both from
Dvorak’s Bohemian childhood and elements of the Negro spiritual and
in the mixing he created a new and, now, thoroughly loved symphony.

“It’s probably the most popular or at least in the top four of
all classical music,” Udagawa said.