The San Juan Symphony will launch its 39th season this weekend. Twin concerts will be performed in Durango and Farmington, with ambitious, long-range programming planned by Music Director Thomas Heuser.
“This my ninth season with the orchestra, and we’ve titled our season ‘Radiant Echoes,’” he said. “Actually, it’s the beginning of a three-year project. It occurred to me that Mozart composed his last three symphonies, the 39th, 40th and 41st, in a short period of time, one summer in 1788.”
Heuser said the Symphony will play them in sequence beginning with this year, to celebrate the 39th.
What does this reveal about how musicians think? Plenty. And to deepen the analogy, he plans to link musical works on every program that share a classical sensibility, no matter what era.
“We’ll be exploring classical style with a 21st century understanding that looks back,” Heuser said.
Heuser’s excellent pre-concert talks will support his larger intentions. Last Wednesday’s “Musically Speaking” is an example of his intention to deepen understanding in informal settings like the Powerhouse Science Center or in the shorter offerings one hour before the concert downbeat in either the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College or Henderson Hall in Farmington. Every one of these pre-concert talks is well worth the time. Heuser has the gift of making music accessible.
The program itself is a tribute to the cut-glass classical style Heuser celebrates. The concert opens with Mendelssohn’s “Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream” followed by Stravinsky’s flickering homage to the Classical aesthetic, the “Pulcinella Suite.” Composed as a ballet, in 1920 for the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the suite has 14 brilliant sections. Stravinsky wrote that the suite signified “my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, the first of many love affairs tin that direction, but was a look in the mirror, too.”
After intermission, Heuser will lead the orchestra in Mozart’s 39th Symphony. In a time of political chaos, natural disasters and war abroad, a musical offering that is clear, balanced and whole, will be a balm in the midst of storms. That’s only one thing classical style, no matter from what century, offers.
“Seeing the musicians and hearing a symphony orchestra in a concert hall is one of the great experiences in life,” Heuser said.
Last weekend, the Durango Choral Society offered music lovers a chance to “Take Flight” with twin concerts at Christ the King Church. In a program filled with new music, the Society and the Durango Women’s Choir introduced the audience to a few familiar tunes like the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” and also Christopher Tin’s “I Shall Not See the Shadows,” from a suite titled “The Lost Birds,” a memorial to species that have vanished. In a bold step, Music Director Rhonda Muckerman added video footage of birds flying, which made the music more meaningful.
Last Sunday, Fort Lewis College opened its concert hall season with a stirring one-hour performance by the FLC Symphonic Band. Conductor Justin Hubbard has quickly made his 45-member ensemble performance ready. “Fall Sentiments” shaped the selections, and Hubbard began by inviting birdsong to fill the hall before the music began. When the ensemble opened with a stunning interpretation of Christopher Tucker’s “Twilight in the Wilderness,” the music rose to a stirring climax. That big work paved the way to familiar music, like “Simple Gifts” in a moving arrangement featuring brass and wind choirs. To close, Hubbard and company performed a transcription from Wagner’s opera Lohengrin: “Elsa’s Procession.” It’s an understatement to say the FLC opening concert signaled a splendid year.
Check out the college website, www.fortlewis.edu/music for a complete listing of recitals and concerts. Many are free and others, like the Symphonic Band, are $10.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
