When the houselights dim on Schlesinger Hall next Saturday, the evening will see a meeting of the minds, both taken to reaching out to their audience to take classical music beyond the genre’s traditional avenues.
The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra concert kicks off the orchestra’s 2003-04 season, with the theme, “Where Does the Music Take You?”
It’s a season based on the idea of exploring how music affects the listeners, said Kim Allen Kluge, the symphony’s musical director and conductor. “I always experience music in a visual way, and I always thought it would be interesting for our audiences to share that experience,” he said.
For the premiere of that season-long experience, pianist Jeffrey Siegel will join Kluge and the ASO, performing Franz Liszt’s adaptation of Franz Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy.” Like Kluge, Siegel said he wants to encourage audiences to think about classical music with an open mind.
To that end, the New York-based pianist carries on “Keyboard Conversations,” discussions and concerts in which he discusses the background and context of the music he performs. Just eight days after his ASO performance, Siegel returns to the Northern Virginia for a Keyboard Conversation at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts.
“Keyboard Conversations reach out and make friends for classical music,” said Siegel. The format draws classical music aficionados and newcomers alike, he said, because it adds some new twist to what would otherwise be a straightforward recital. “I’ve heard people say afterwards, ‘I didn’t realize I could like classical music.’”
Leonard Bernstein’s lectures and concerts for young people served as “the guiding light” for the Keyboard Conversations, Siegel said. “Everything [Bernstein] said was in preparation for hearing the piece. By the time he turned around, the listener was on the edge of his seat.”
WHILE SIEGEL REACHES out to his audience with words, Kluge is hoping to reach Alexandria Symphony audience members with paint, stone and plaster.
He asked artists from the Art League and the Torpedo Factory the central theme of this Symphony season, “Where does the music take you?” “They have created hundreds of pieces of visual art inspired by the music in those programs,” said Kluge.
Each concert will feature a display beforehand, in the Schlesinger Center lobby, of those artworks. Then, during the concert, a screen behind the orchestra will show a video of the art inspired by the pieces, exploring the niches and contours of each sculpture and painting.
“In working with visual artists, it has changed the way I think about and experience music,” said Kluge.
In addition to exploring the visual dimensions of music, this season also asks the audience to involve themselves more deeply in the music. “It grew out of comments made to me,” said Kluge. “The most often-repeated comment, from connoisseurs to novices, they say ‘Kim, when the orchestra is playing, I feel so close to the music.’ I wanted to take the audience even closer.”
That’s what prompts the question in the season’s theme, he said. “There’s no proscribed voyage for music, so we’re framing the entire season with a question,” said Kluge.
SCHUBERT’S “WANDERER FANTASY” should take the audience to the edge of their seats, Siegel said. “It’s an unusual piece for Schubert, because it’s so extremely extroverted. And it’s more virtuosic than anything else he’s written.”
So virtuosic, in fact, that performance eluded its composer. In a story that the composer himself related in a letter, he tried to perform the piece for a group of friends, Siegel said. “He broke off towards the end in frustration, and said, ‘The devil can play such stuff, but I cannot.’”
Other pianists have sympathized. “I have played the solo version many times, and I can understand Schubert’s feelings,” said Siegel.
But on Saturday night, Siegel will not be playing Schubert’s piano solo. Instead, he will perform a transcription of the piece by Franz Liszt, arranged for concert and piano. “It’s wonderful to play,” said Siegel, “off the beaten track. In my opinion, Liszt really enhances the composition.”
LISZT’S ARRANGEMENT fits in well with Kluge’s aims for the first concert, and the season as a whole. The whole point of the season, the conductor said, is to ask the audience the central question, “Where does the music take you?”
“There are an infinite number of places music takes us,” said Kluge. “But we only have five concerts in the season.” So he separated music, and ideas, into five general areas: adventure, passion, dreams transcendence and rebirth.
The first concert, “Adventure,” will begin the season-long voyage for the Alexandria Symphony. The program starts off with Tan Dun’s music from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and ends with Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”
Both pieces are well known, Kluge said, but can still engage the audience’s imagination. “The Tan Dun piece, for anyone who’s seen the movie, it’s all in that music,” he said. “The Holst is self-explanatory. Each of the seven movements is an exploration of the planet.”
In between, those two pieces, Siegel will join the orchestra for the Liszt/Schubert “Wanderer Fantasy.” “It’s talking about the pain and the joy of traveling,” said Kluge. “It’s very fantastic, in terms of the musical form, which gives free range to the imagination.”