KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Kansas City Symphony
Lord of the Rings Symphony
Friday, May 7 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 8 at 8 p.m.
Music Hall
301 West 13th Street, Downtown Kansas City, MO

Can we count Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings Symphony, created from the music the composer created for the three Lord of the Rings movies, as classical music?  Well, if it's being performed by the Kansas City Symphony and Chorus, it comes close to counting.  Besides, this writer is a big fan of the Peter Jackson larger-than-life trilogy. 

The Lord of the Rings Symphony had its birth after the premieres of the three Jackson movies.  Shore had put so much into the film scores that he was encouraged to stitch the music together into a larger scale piece to be performed in concert venues.  With the assistance of eminent composer and conductor John Mauceri, he divided the trilogy's themes into six movements, called them a Symphony, and...presto!...had a hit on his hands.

Of course, it wasn't quite as easy as that.  Shore took four years to write the piece and it had its premiere in November 2003, in New Zealand where the movies were filmed. Since then the work has been heard in 140 performances in dozens of places around the world, but not that often in the United States.  In fact, the Kansas City performances are among the few in the states this year.  The Kansas City performances are bookended with performances in Finland and the Czech Republic, for example, and if you happen to miss these hearings you can catch them later in June in Rome, if you like.

For the film scores that form the basis for the symphony, Shore looked for unusual instrumentations and effects.  According to the publicity, "styles, instruments and performers were collected from around the world to provide each of Tolkien's cultures with a unique musical imprint.

"The rural and simple hobbits were rooted in a dulcet weave of Celtic tones. The mystical Elves touched upon ethereal Eastern colors. The Dwarves, Tolkien's abrasive stonecutters, received columns of parallel harmonies and a rough, guttural male chorus. The industrialized hordes of Orcs earned Shore's most violent and percussive sounds, including Japanese taiko drums, metal bell plates and chains beaten upon piano wires, while the world of Men, those flawed yet noble heirs of Middle-earth, was presented with stern and searching brass figures."

These themes are comingled and used in various fashions, much like Wagnerian leitmotifs, "sometimes combining forces for a culminated power, other times violently clashing...and always bending to the will of the One Ring and its own ominous family of themes.

Mauceri's role was to help Shore stitch all of these themes into a coherent whole.  He took his inspiration from "the programmatic orchestral works of Strauss, Liszt, Smetana and Sibelius," according to program notes.

These performances will feature not only the full Kansa City Symphony, but also the Symphony Chorus.  Ludwig Wicki will be the conductor. Wicki has specialized in conducting the Lord of the Rings Symphony and has done so dozens of times to date.

Meanwhile, Shore has been busy composing other things. In 2008, his opera of The Fly premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and at Los Angeles Opera. Other recent works include Fanfare for the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia and a piano concerto which will be premiered in 2010 by famed pianist Lang Lang. He is currently working on his second opera and will return to Middle Earth with J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in the movie theaters.

Note:  This performance is taking place at the Music Hall, not the Lyric Theatre.  After initial tickets sales by the Symphony ticket office, ticket sales at the Music Hall have now been taken over by Ticketmaster.

For tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Tickets are not available through the Symphony website due to contractual requirements for the performance at the Music Hall.

 Park University
Chamber Music Concert
Thursday, May 7 at 2:30 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel at Park University
8700 N.W. River Park Drive, Parkville, MO

No program has been announced for this chamber music concert, but Park University's concerts are always very good and you can't beat the price - it's free.

Kansas City Symphony
Music of World War I
Saturday, May 9 at 1 p.m.
World War I Museum
100 West 26th Street, Kansas City, MO

In a free Community Connections concert rescheduled from March 28, the KC Symphony this weekend offers a free chamber music performance on Saturday afternoon in the J. C. Nichols Auditorium at the beautiful World War I Museum, featuring music of the World War I era.  Music of Poulenc, Prokofiev, Hindemith and Ravel headline the program, which will be performed by selected musicians from the Symphony.  The local band should be congratulated for these free public concerts, which offer a great opportunity for members of the public to hear such talented musicians at no charge.

For free tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

Lee's Summit Symphony
Family Concert
Saturday May 9 at 7 p.m.
Bernard C. Campbell Performing Arts Center
Lee's Summit High School
400 S.E. Blue Parkway, Lee's Summit, MO

This concert by the Lee's Summit Symphony will include The Remarkable Farkle McBride featuring KMBC's Joel Nichols, Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland, and movie theme music from Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones and more.

Tickets are available at Lee's Summit Hy-Vee locations and online at www.lssymphony.org

Medical Arts Symphony
Spring Concert
Saturday May 9 at 8 p.m.
Battenfeld Auditorium
Olathe and Rainbow Blvds, Kansas City, KS

The Medical Arts Symphony consists of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who have combined their musical talent to form a society that plays symphonic music. The orchestra has been in existence for over 30 years. Some of its members are retired professional musicians. The orchestra gives two concerts yearly in Kansas City, usually in late November and in late April or early May. Professionals fill out the ranks for these concerts.

The program for this concert includes Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, Ludwig Boellman's Symphonic Variations, the world premiere of Charles Hoag's The Rainbow Boulevard Two-step Rag and Sibelius' Finlandia. The Boellman piece will feature cello soloist and local cello instructor James Swain.

Purchase tickets at the door. 

 Kansas City Symphony
Beethoven and Brahms

Friday, May 15 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 16 at 8 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
10th and Central, Downtown Kansas City, MO

Sunday, May 17 at 2 p.m.
Carlsen Center at JCCC
Overland Park, KS

The eponymous compositions on this program are Beethoven's Coriolan Overture and Brahms' Serenade No. 1.  Both are impressive pieces of music which almost any audience member will enjoy.  The real featured work of the concert, however, will be the stirring Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 featuring Latvian virtuoso Baiba Skride, making her Kansas City debut.

First, to the two B's.  Beethoven wrote his Coriolan Overture in 1807 as incidental music for a play by Heinrich von Collin about the exiled Roman general Coriolanus, who marched against his own people. The music alternates between a stern militaristic theme and a softer one, characterizing his mother Volumnia, who pleads for mercy until her son finally yields. In life Coriolanus committed suicide, represented by the slow disintegration of the overture at the end. It's a short masterpiece, about eight minutes long that shows Beethoven in full flower as a composer.

The Brahms Serenade No. 1 is much like a full symphony, but in five short movements. Written when the composer was only 25, it the piece started out as a chamber composition but was eventually expanded for performance by full orchestra. Brahms was at his most "modern" here before turning back to more classical sounds later in his career and it makes for an interesting contrast to his later, full-length symphonies.

Twenty-eight year-old violinist Baiba Skride, who won winner of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Contest in 2001, has already turned heads in the musical world in Europe, and plays a Stradivarius on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. For the Kansas City Symphony she tackles the Shostakovich first violin concerto, which dates from one of the times when the composer's music was banned by Soviet authorities. Its soloist at the premiere years later, David Oistrakh, characterized the first movement as "a suppression of feelings", and the second as "demoniac.". The scherzo is also notable for an appearance by the DSCH motif representing the composer himself, and also a strain from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the "Fate" Symphony. It is still not often heard and Skrid's performance affords the audience a rare opportunity to enjoy the piece.

For tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

Octarium
Should Have Been Choral

Saturday, May 16 at 8 p.m.
KCYA Auditorium St. Theresa's Academy
5600 Main Street, Kansas City, MO

Sunday, May 17 at 2:30 p.m.
Swarthout Recital Hall
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Octarium, the eight-voiced singing group, has become known as one of Kansas City's most elegant choral organizations, ranking right up there with the Kansas City Chorale in terms of high quality, transcendentally beautiful music, but on a smaller scale.  In the spring concert, the group traditionally "lets its hair down" and sings more popular numbers, and this concert is no exception. Octarium will, according to the publicity, give "a presentation of their touring repertoire; a little Abba, a little Rossini, a little Toto, a little Satie, a little American Idol ... a little something for everyone." It should be fun.

For tickets online visit www.octarium.org or purchase tickets at the door.

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.