Cincinnati in New York New Year's Eve

 




                                                                                Kristjan Järvi 

   Kristjan Järvi, who sparked John Adams’ “Nixon in China” for Cincinnati Opera last summer, returns to Music Hall Monday, but he’ll be onstage this time, not in the pit.

   Järvi, 35, younger brother of Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Järvi, guest conducts the CSO’s New Year’s Eve concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Music Hall.

Tony and Maria will be there, tenor Rodrick Dixon and soprano Ellie Dehn, to help celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”  So will the Duke (Ellington) in tribute to the Big Apple.  

Dubbed “Bernstein’s New York Story,” the evening includes a gala dinner and ball after the concert in the Music Hall Ballroom.  The concert will open with some musical bubbly, Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide,” followed by the Symphonic Dances and Concert Suite No. 1 from “West Side Story, the latter featuring Dixon and Dehn.

   Duke Ellington’s “ Harlem,” arranged by Luther Henderson and John Mauceri, will close the show on some very high notes (in the trumpets).

    Tickets for the concert are $12-$75.25 and can be purchased separately.  The ball is $168-$225.25, $218-$275.25 for patrons, both including admission to the concert (patrons also get preferred

seating and listing in the
program).  Call (513) 381-3300, or order online at www.cincinnatisymphony.org.            

Promotional materials for the evening simulate the black-on-red cover of the soundtrack album from the 1961 Oscar-winning film of “West Side Story.”  The Music Hall Ballroom will be decked out in white-on-white.  There’ll be white tablecloths, silver-edged white napkins and white flowers, including “big, white spider mums, which were the flowers in the 1950s when ‘West Side Story’ came out,” said gala chairwoman Suzanne Costandi of Hyde Park.

   “We’ve given it a bit of sophistication,” she said.  “To me, the New Year’s Eve gala at the symphony is one of the last few really glamorous New Year’s Eve events in Cincinnati.  We try to keep it that way and encourage people to dress up.  It’s nice to see people in black tie, but a lot of the younger people are not that keen, so it’s black tie optional.”

Dinner (by The Phoenix) includes mixed green salad with apples, cranberries and blue cheese, petite filet mignon and pecan-encrusted trout, with white and chocolate mousse in wine glasses for dessert.  There will be an open bar and dancing to music by Cincinnati Pops keyboardist Julie Spangler and Randemonium.

   A fund-raiser for the CSO, the evening includes a silent auction.  Items in hand so far, said Costandi, include certificates for travel, dining and shopping, themed gift baskets and jewelry.  There will be a champagne toast and “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight.

   It would have been hard to find a conductor more in tune with a program celebrating Bernstein and New York than Kristjan Järvi.  Though he now lives in Vienna with his wife and two sons and is into his fourth season as chief conductor of Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchestra, New York was his home from age seven, when his father, conductor Neeme Järvi, and his family emigrated from their native Estonia.

   Järvi speaks without an accent, grew up in the big city and after debating a future in music vs. business, enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied piano with Nina Svetlanova.  He began conducting there, organizing ensembles to perform music by fellow students.  Absolute Ensemble, an 18-piece, electro-acoustic chamber group founded in 1993, began performing in clubs and small venues, gradually attracting a following.

    Led by Järvi, Absolute Ensemble commissioned new music, produced its own recordings, garnered admiring reviews and won a Grammy nomination in 2002 for “Absolution” in the best small ensemble category.  The group now performs all over the world.

   “Absolution,” exemplifies Järvi and Absolute Ensemble’s motto, inscribed in the album’s liner notes: “to be relieved of obligation,” meaning “to free your mind, open your ears and be inspired by the infinite spectrum of musical styles.”  The seven short works on the CD mix and match serialism, prepared piano, improvisation, jazz and rock.

   “I am truly an omnivore,” said Järvi, who did post-graduate study in conducting with Kenneth Kiesler at the University of Michigan.  As such, he echoes Bernstein, who utilized a broad spectrum of music in his compositions.  Järvi also reflects Duke Ellington, who famously said “if it sounds good it is good.”

   Järvi began symphonic conducting in 1998 as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.  He made his debut with the L.A. Philharmonic in 1999 at the Hollywood Bowl.  From 2000-2004, he was chief conductor of Norrlands Opera in Sweden, where he won a Swedish Grammy in 2004 for “Isle of Bliss” by Hilding Rosenberg (best opera performance).

   He became artistic adviser of the Basel Chamber Orchestra this year, having extended his contract in Vienna, as well.

   Järvi has made over 20 recordings in a dizzying range of musical styles, with a crazy quilt of composers including John Adams, Johannes Brahms, James Brown, Charles Coleman, Claude Debussy, H.K. Gruber, Jimi Hendrix, Paul Hindemith, Abdullah Ibrahim, Arvo Part, Paquito d’Rivera, Daniel Schnyder, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Ezequiel Vinao and Frank Zappa.

   Järvi has recorded Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg’s 1922 Cello Concerto with superstar cellist Truls Mork (BIS Records, 2007) and, oh yes, he does Beethoven and the Beatles, too.  According to www.kristjanjarvi.com, look for Haydn’s “ Paris” symphonies (Nos. 82-87) on CD soon with the Tonkünstler Orchestra.

    Järvi’s work typically effaces boundaries, even in conservative Vienna, where he has begun a “Plugged In” series with the Tonkünstler Orchestra.  This season he leads three “Plugged-In” concerts featuring Tunisian singer Dhafer Youssef, Australian jazz trumpeter James Morrison and a tango concert with Dutch bandoneon player Karel Kraayenhof.

   To help focus Absolute Ensemble’s image and marketing, Järvi creates project-related programs like “Absolute Arabian Nights” (jazz/middle eastern fusion), “Absolute Habanera” (Afro-Cuban with d’Rivera), “Absolute Bregovic” (with Balkan guitarist Goran Bregovic) and “Absolute Zappa.”  “Absolute Bach Inventions” and “Absolute Mahler” are on the horizon (see www.absoluteensemble.com for details).    

   Bernstein, with his lifelong “popular” and classical identities, would have approved, no doubt.  Bernstein’s 1971 Mass, which Järvi conducted with the Tonkünstler Orchestra in 2006, both in Vienna and on tour, is a masterpiece of eclecticism, with elements of Broadway, opera, jazz, blues, rock, electronic music and liturgical chant.  Järvi has a recording of it in the works, too.  The kinship with Bernstein has been noted.  Reviewing a 2001 performance by Absolute Ensemble, the New York Times described Järvi as “a kinetic force on the podium, like Leonard Bernstein reborn as a conductor of fusion bands.”

   Järvi and Absolute Ensemble are carrying their gospel of “music without borders” into the educational realm.  In 2006, in conjunction with Bremen University for the Arts ( Germany), he founded the Absolute Academy, a workshop for classical musicians at the annual Musikfest Bremen, where Absolute Ensemble is ensemble-in-residence.

    The goal of the Absolute Academy is to bridge the gap between conventional musical training and the “world of musical possibilities that Absolute Ensemble stands for.”  The inaugural session included master classes in improvisation and multiple musical styles and performance of music from Absolute Ensemble’s touring repertoire.

   In 2007, Absolute Ensemble was awarded the Bremen Musikfest Deutschebank Prize for Outstanding Artistic Achievement.

   Like all the Järvi’s, Kristjan remains devoted to Estonia and guest conducts there frequently.  In 2005, he and his sister, flutist Maarika Järvi, co-founded the Estonian Orphanage Music Outreach Program, a nation wide initiative to foster the musical development of disadvantaged children.

   Kristjan Järvi on disc (a sample for starters):

  “Absolute Mix.” Absolute Ensemble. CCn’C Records, 2000. Winner of the German Record Critics’ Prize. Hindemith, Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 1 (“very fast and wild”). Michael Daugherty, “Dead Elvis,” (for bassoon/Elvis impersonator and chamber orchestra) and “Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover” (with digital samples of Hoover’s speeches). James MacMillan, “…as others see us” (musical portraits of Henry VIII and T.S. Eliot). Charles Coleman, “Restless” and “Lizard People.” John Adams, “Roadrunner.” Conlon Nancarrow, Study No. 2 for Player Piano. Debussy, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” arranged for chamber ensemble.

  “Shifting Landscapes.” Symphony of Norrlands Opera. CCn’C, 2001. John Adams, “Fearful Symmetries.” Lepo Sumera, Symphony No. 2 (majestic three-movement symphony by the late Estonian composer). Adams, “The Chairman Dances” (foxtrot for orchestra, a 1984 sketch for the last act of “Nixon in China”).

  “To the New World and Beyond.” Symphony of Norrlands Opera. CCn’C, 2006. Stravinsky, Symphony in Three Movements (one of the composer’s great works, performed during CSO Stravinsky Festival in November), “Four Norwegian Moods” (based on folk melodies, choreographed in 1976),  Suites No. 1 and 2 (delightful, four-movement dance suites) and “Canzonetta” (inspired by 1911 Sibelius work of the same name). Hindemith, Concerto for Orchestra (four-movement, neo-baroque). 

By Mary Ellyn Hutton

This story was first published in The Cincinnati Post Dec. 27, 2007