Program Notes
Conductor biographies
Elliana Phillips is serving as Assistant Conductor for the orchestra. She’s an OSU senior majoring in viola performance with additional concentrations in violin, conducting, and German. She grew up in Canby and is now from Bozeman, Montana.
Dr. Marlan Carlson is an OSU professor of music, music director of the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra, and holder of the Otwell Endowed Chair for University Orchestras. In the course of his career at OSU, Carlson served as chair of the music department for 17 years, as well as resident director of study abroad programs in England, Germany, Italy, Austria, and France. He has also traveled to China many times to conduct professional symphony orchestras in a number of cities, including Shanghai and Tianjin.
Lawrence Johnson is the horn instructor at OSU and a staff conductor with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, where he leads the Conservatory Orchestra. He is also a co-founder and president of Music Camps at Wallowa Lake, an organization that runs music camps each summer in Eastern Oregon. He has performed with many orchestras in the northwest and internationally.
Program notes
Symphony String Ensemble
Conducted by Elliana Phillips
Chamber Symphony, Op. 110 — Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
The Chamber Symphony is the composer’s arrangement of his String Quartet #8, and is in five movements played without the usual pauses between movements. The principal four-note motive heard throughout the piece is derived from the German transliteration of the composer’s name, D. SCHostakovich. In German notation, E-flat is called “es” and B-natural is H. Thus, DSCH is D, E-flat, C, B.
Octet for Strings in Eb major, Op. 20 — Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
One of the first of Mendelssohn’s major successes, the Octet was written in 1825 when he was only sixteen years old. Scored for eight musicians – four violins, two violas, and two cellos – it is often arranged for full string orchestra. Mendelssohn prescribed that the Octet “be played by all the instruments in a symphonic orchestral style.” He edited the score before its final publication in 1832. The String Ensemble is playing the first movement of this four-movement work.
Symphony Brass Ensemble
Conducted by Larry Johnson
Fanfares Liturgique — Henri Tomasi (1901-1971)
Tomasi wrote these fanfares (originally Fanfares concertantes) as part of his opera Don Juan de Mañara. Written in 1942-1943, they were premiered in concert in 1947 in Monte Carlo, where Tomasi had just become conductor of the opera, and published in 1952.
Symphony Woodwind Ensemble
Conducted by Marlan Carlson
Serenade No. 11 K.375 – Allegro — Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791)
Written in 1781 in Vienna as a sextet for pairs of clarinets, horns, and bassoons, the Serenade was expanded in July 1782 by the addition of a pair of oboes to create the wind octet version (K.375b) we hear in this concert.
Octet for Woodwinds, Op 103 in Eb major — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
This octet is from Beethoven’s early period, written in 1792 and intended for Tafelmusik (table or background music), with some virtuoso writing for the horns. After beginning his studies with Haydn, he re-worked the Octet as his first String Quartet, Op. 4. The Octet wasn’t published until 1834, after his death.
