orchestra, choruses unite
O fortuna! The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra is teaming up with three community choruses to bring us one of the world's most loved choral pieces, "Carmina Burana."
Here's a primer of the event and the piece:
• In the beginning: The Carmina Burana is a collection of 254 lyric poems and dramatic texts written by monks and minstrels, mostly in medieval Latin and German. They date to the 11th or 12th century, although scholars have said some are from the 13th century. The texts were discovered in the library of the Benedictine Monastery of Benedktbeuern near Munich in 1803.
• Wine, women and wild times: The texts include 55 songs of morals and mockery, more than 130 love songs, 40 songs about drinking and gambling, and a pair of longer spiritual theater pieces.
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• Enter Carl Orff: The German composer selected 24 bawdy songs for his oratorio in 1937 and arranged them as a scenic cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The work got its premiere in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1937, and quickly became a hit, establishing Orff, a renown music educator, as a 20th-century genius. The piece didn't have its American debut until 1958 in San Francisco.
"That was the success of Carl Orff," says Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra Music Director Linus Lerner. "He hit the spot where nobody ever did."
"Carmina Burana," when performed with a full complement of choristers, soloists and instrumentalists, plays like a theater piece.
• Unforgettable music: The driving rhythm pulsates with a physical energy that's organically primitive at times. It ranges from the single voice of a simple chant to full-throttled, enormously involved songs that have near contemporary rock music qualities.
"It's almost ceremonial music, which comes to the very roots of our music," says Lerner. "It's guttural and fiery. It talks of of human, common things."
• Everyone knows "O Fortuna": The opening song has been used in more commercials than we can count, including for Old Spice, Gatorade and the Australian beer Carlton Drought. Its use in movies and movie trailers also is exhaustive and includes "The Hunt for Red October" in 1990 and "G-Force" earlier this year.
If you go
• What: Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra 30th anniversary concert - Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana."
• Featuring: Guest soloists soprano Christi Amonson, baritone Benjamin Bunsold and tenor Andrew Zimmerman; and guest choruses the Tucson Girls Chorus, Tucson Masterworks Chorale and Catalinas Community Chorus.
• When and where: 7:30 p.m. today at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive; 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 7650 N. Paseo Del Norte, off North Oracle and West Magee roads.
• Tickets: $20 at the door. Availability limited; call for reservations.
• Details: 323-7166.
• Program:
Saint-Saens' Bacchanale from "Samson and Delilah."
Alan Schultz's Anniversary Commission sponsored by Dorothy Vanek (world premiere).
Orff's "Carmina Burana."
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra at 30
It started out with four musicians sitting in a trailer in Willcox in the summer of 1979 drafting the legal documents for what they called the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra. By the time of their first concert on Oct. 28, 1979, led by conductor Henry Johnson, they had assembled a full-fledged ensemble. That concert featured Saint-Saens' Bacchanale from "Samson and Delilah" and Rimsky-Korsakov's Overture to "Tsar's Bride."
The orchestra started out as a volunteer ensemble and continues as such today. But their quality is every bit as good as their professional peers, driven by conductors who have pushed the group to test the bounds of their comfort zone. Conductors over the years have included Rico Saccani, who went on to a 20-year run as music director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985-2005; Alan Schultz, who led the orchestra for 15 seasons beginning two years after its founding; composer/pianist Warren Cohen, who commuted from Phoenix to lead the group for eight season; Adam Boyles, who infused a youthful energy into the group over three seasons before taking a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and his successor, Brazilian-born Linus Lerner, who will take the orchestra to China in late December for its international debut.
Some of the orchestra's historical highlights:
• Largest concert until "Carmina Burana": Berlioz's "Te Deum" in November 1989, with the Civic Orchestra of Tucson, Tucson Masterworks Chorale, Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus and Pima College Singers.
• First group to play SaddleBrooke: Former concertmaster and longtime orchestra player Sam Kreiling proposed that the orchestra travel to SaddleBrooke in December 1995 for the first-ever concert held at the retirement community north of Tucson. The concert sold out, as did SASO's four-concert SaddleBrooke series the following year. The orchestra, which continues to present a season in SaddleBrooke, now has competition. Several ensembles perform at SaddleBrooke, which have followed them to perform there.
• Founding members still on board: There are seven musicians still playing in the orchestra who played in that inaugural season.
Collaborative arts
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra will pack nearly 240 people onto the stage for three performances of "Carmina Burana" in what is likely one of the city's largest collaborative arts efforts in recent memory.
The concert celebrates SASO's 30th anniversary, the 60th anniversary of Tucson Masterworks Chorale, the 25th anniversary of the Girls Chorus and the fourth anniversary of Catalinas Community Chorus.
"This is all amateur (choirs). It's a great stretch for all of them," said Marcela Molina, conductor of the Tucson Masterworks Chorale and Tucson Girls Chorus, which will be part of the concerts this weekend. "I'm sure it's going to be a milestone for all of them. I'm very excited to be able to present this to the community, done by community members."
"The fact that we are bringing the community together in music and joy, that is the celebration," added Catalinas founder and artistic director Cyndee Chaffee. "It's about bringing hope and joy in these times of challenge. It's such a wonderful collaborative effort of four arts organizations coming together."
