Parodying Saint-Saens’ own parodies, the chamber ensemble
concert:nova will present a kind of “Carnival of Composers” this weekend.
Performances are 7 p.m. Sunday, 8 p.m. Monday (May 23 and 24) in Mickey Jarson Kaplan Studio in Cincinnati Ballet headquarters at the corner of Liberty Street and Central Parkway downtown.
The program, which closes concert:nova’s highly successful third season, is entitled “Carnival of the Animals,” and features Saint-Saens’ wildly popular suite of the same name -- but with a twist. Alternating with the 15 movements of Saint-Saens’ original will be 15 newly composed pieces which also comment on members of the animal kingdom.
Fleshing out the characterizations – both Saint Saens’ and the
newly conceived ones – will be ten members of Cincinnati Ballet, including principal dancer
Kristi Capps, who leaves the company this year (if fact, it will be Capps' last
performances in Cincinnati). Choreography
is by Cincinnati Ballet’s Heather Britt.
Annuziata Tomaro, conductor of the Concert Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will conduct.
The composers and their animals as they appear in the suite
are: Jeff Silva (lion), Charles Coleman
(hens and roosters), Danny Clay (wild animals), George Flynn (tortoises), Inez
McComas (elephant), Jerold Sommerfeldt (kangaroos), Jennifer Jolley (fish), Juan
Campoverde (donkeys), Douglas Knehans (cuckoo), Mara Helmuth (birds), Kurt
Westerberg (pianists), Ellen Harrison (fossils), Douglas Pew (swan) and Joel
Hoffman (finale, where the bestiary reappears). Wenhui Xie composed the Introduction to the suite.
Saint-Saens, who considered the piece frivolous and, with
the exception of “The Swan,” didn’t allow it to be performed during his
lifetime, filled it with jokes and witty allusions. The new composers have been asked to write
“responses” to the original music, i.e. “explore the work with a contemporary
eye and create a new approach to each of the animals.”
Saint-Saens, for instance, gave the tortoise a slow-moving can-can (the familiar one by Offenbach from “Orpheus in the Underworld”) and the elephant a double bass performing a waltz. More literally, he imitated the rhythmic pecking of the hens, the call of the cuckoo and the braying of the donkey.
Who knows? Will the roosters crow? The elephant trumpet? The swan quote Sibelius (“The Swan of Tuonela”)? Come, see and hear.
Admission is $25, $15 for students, available by calling 1-800-838-3006, or visit www.concertnova.com
For further information, see concert:nova on Facebook and the concert:nova blog at http://concertnova.wordpress.com/
concert:nova
L to R: Ixi Chen, Eric Bates, Randolph Bowman, Christine Coletta, Tatiana Berman, Cristian Ganicenco, Ted Nelson, Elizabeth Freimuth, Maurice Aguiar, Owen Lee (not pictured: Heidi Yenney, Patrick Schleker)
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