Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra Plays Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite, Copland’s Appalachian Spring
UM Frost School of Music’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra to Play Duke Ellington’s “Nutcracker Suite” and Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” as part of Terence Blanchard Presents: A Concert of American Music. $15 adults, $10 seniors/children.
By UM News 10-24-2012
Terence Blanchard, artistic director of the Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, announces the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra will present a dance-inspired program featuring Duke Ellington’s “Nutcracker Suite” at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, November 30 at UM Gusman Concert Hall, 1314 Miller Drive, Coral Gables, Florida. The work is an upbeat multi-movement jazz interpretation of “The Nutcracker” by Tchaikovsky, created in 1960 by Duke Ellington and his musical collaborator Billy Strayhorn.
Entitled TERENCE BLANCHARD PRESENTS: A CONCERT OF AMERICAN MUSIC, the program will also feature Aaron Copland’s beloved “Appalachian Spring,” a ballet suite for 13 instruments inspired by ballet music that Copland composed for famed dancer and choreographer Martha Graham in 1944; plus two world premieres by Henry Mancini Composition Fellows, David Pegel (“The Pilgrim”) and Rafael da Lima de Piccolotto (“Asa, Zóio e Matulão”) that utilize the same instrumentation as Copland’s classic work.
Terence Blanchard will host a pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. for young people involved in the institute’s community outreach program, HMI Outbound. Scott Flavin, resident conductor of the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra and Stephen Guerra, managing director of the Henry Mancini Institute, will conduct the concert.
About the Henry Mancini Institute
The prestigious Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami Frost School of Music is training a new generation of orchestral and jazz artists to create and perform in mixed-genre, collaborative settings. Its student musicians are introduced to a wide range of styles from classical, jazz, rock, hip-hop, Afro-Cuban, Latin, Asian and other world music. Real-world opportunities prepare them for the changing world of music they are about to enter, such as performing and recording the music of iconic film composers, and multi-media recording for television specials.
The Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra is comprised of a full orchestra (strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion), plus an additional complement of jazz instruments (saxophones, trombones, trumpets), world percussion and rhythm section instruments (piano, bass, drums, guitar). The ensemble also performs in smaller chamber music configurations throughout the year.
Graduate students who participate in the program are recruited to become “Mancini Fellows,” receiving free graduate tuition from the University of Miami and financial stipends that are funded through private donations.
The Henry Mancini Institute is the recipient of a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Arts Challenge grant, with matching funding from the Mancini Family and UM trustee and business leader Adrienne Arsht.
About Artistic Director Terence Blanchard
Five-time Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter and film composer Terence Blanchard is Artistic Director of the Henry Mancini Institute (HMI). Blanchard has established himself as one of the most influential jazz musicians and film score masters of his generation, a member of a jazz legacy that has shaped the contours of modern jazz today. With more than 29 albums to his credit, as a musician Blanchard is a multi-Grammy Award winner and nominee, winning last year for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” for his performance on Jeff “Tain” Watts’ project, “Watts.” In 2009, Blanchard won for his instrumental solo for “Be-Bop” on Live At The 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival. In addition to receiving the award, Blanchard performed live on the telecast along with other New Orleans artists including Lil’ Wayne, Allen Toussaint, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who were all joined on-stage by singer Robin Thicke. In 2008, Blanchard also won a Grammy for his CD, A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), a beautifully haunting and impassioned song cycle about Hurricane Katrina and the ravages incurred upon the City of New Orleans and its residents.
As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit and received a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee’s 25th Hour . In 2009, Blanchard loaned his musical voice to Louis the Alligator in The Princess and the Frog and completed the score for Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna , as well as the soundtrack for Darnell Martin’s Cadillac Records . He received widespread critical acclaim for his recent scores for two Broadway plays, The Mother—— with the Hat , produced by Scott Rudin (“The Social Network” and “True Grit”) and A Streetcar Named Desire ; and Blanchard’s composing talents were once again highlighted in the George Lucas’ film about the Tuskegee Airmen entitled Red Tails . Blanchard is currently at work on a commission for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Champion , to premiere in 2013.
About the Frost School of Music
The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music is one of two schools created in 1926 when the University of Miami was founded. With over 700 students and 100 faculty, it is one of the largest and best music schools located in a private university in the U.S., and one of the most comprehensive in all of higher education. The naming gift from Dr. Phillip and Patricia Frost in 2003 was one of the historic highlights in the life of the School.
The mission of the Frost School of Music is to foster musical leadership by providing an innovative, relevant, and inspiring education; advance performance, creativity, and scholarship; and enrich the world community with meaningful outreach and brilliant cultural offerings.
The Frost School has pioneered new curricula and was the first in the nation to offer professionally accredited Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Business and Music Engineering Technology, was among the first to offer degrees in Music Therapy, and Studio Music and Jazz. Renowned for its Instrumental Performance programs, it is the home of the Frost Chamber Orchestra, Frost Symphony Orchestra, and Frost Concert Jazz Band and is a leader in vocal training with the Frost Opera Theater, Frost Chorale, and other notable choirs.
Frost is the exclusive home of the Frost Experiential Music Curriculum which fully integrates performance, music history, ear training, and composition through chamber music and skills ensembles; the Henry Mancini Institute which provides students with cross-genre performance opportunities in real-world professional settings; the Stamps Family Distinguished Visitors Series which brings free music masterclasses and lectures to the community; and the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program which develops the creative skills of talented young artist/songwriters by immersing them in the diverse traditions of American songwriting.
reDiscover Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’
From the candy-sweet ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ to the glittering ‘Dance of the Reed Flutes,’ Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite is the musical epitome of sugar, snow, and sparkle. Our guide to Tchaikovsky’s Christmas classic delves into the work’s history and reveals why Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without it.
Why the name?
The Nutcracker Suite is a sparkly little box of jewels made up of highlights from Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker, which has become a Christmas staple around the world: conductor Simon Rattle calls it “one of the great miracles in music.” The ballet’s title comes from a story, The Nutcracker And The Mouse King, written in 1814 by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann.
After the pair had worked together on The Sleeping Beauty, the choreographer Marius Petipa worked with Tchaikovsky to write the music for a new scenario he had chosen and written out, based on a version by Alexandre Dumas of Hoffmann’s story. Petipa instructed Tchaikovsky down to the last detail, including the tempo and the number of bars in each section.
The Nutcracker, a fairy tale ballet in two acts, is centered around a young girl’s Christmas Eve celebration and romantic awakening. She creeps downstairs to play with her favorite present, a nutcracker, which comes to life as a handsome prince who whisks her off to the Land of Sweets. The ballet was first performed on 18 December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia.
Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight musical highlights from The Nutcracker before the ballet’s premiere, forming The Nutcracker Suite, which was performed for the first time on 7 March 1892 in St Petersburg. The Nutcracker Suite became instantly popular and was featured in Disney’s Fantasia.
Need to know
What has always struck people about Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite is the astonishing sounds the composer gets from the orchestra – he brings the toys and sweets to life in music that somehow sounds like glittering cut-glass, crystallized ginger, and spun sugar. One innovation was Tchaikovsky’s use of the celesta, the instrument you hear in the ‘Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy’ (Petipa said he wanted this dance to sound “like drops of water shooting from a fountain”). The celesta is a keyboard instrument whose hammers hit metal plates, sounding similar to but softer than a glockenspiel; Tchaikovsky had heard one in Paris in 1891 and asked his publisher to buy one, hoping to keep it a secret so that no other Russian would compose music for the instrument before him.
Watch the new video for ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ inspired by classic holiday stories for children, including The Nutcracker and A Visit From St. Nicholas (also known as The Night Before Christmas), in which “The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.” The video, created by Tibetan-American artist Tenzin Yougyal, follows a young boy named Leo (after Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich), and a magical fairy as they travel through their dreams on the night before Christmas. During their wonderful adventure, they encounter the secret, joyful home of the dancing Sugar Plums.
