TAKE IT FROM THE TOP: BSO opener features a trio of guest talent

Published 11:56 am Friday, November 13, 2015

Three very different but complimentary selections encompass the program that will kick off the latest season for the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra Saturday, Nov. 14, Christopher Rogerson’s “Luminosity,” Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fourth Piano Concerto” and Carl Nielsen’s “Symphony No. 3.”

“I always like to start the season with music that’s really exciting or engaging,” said BSO conductor Wesley Schulz. “It’s really visceral music.”

Also featured in this season’s debut production are three guest performers, including pianist Rick Rowley, baritone Charles Robert Stephens and soprano Victoria Robertson, making her BSO debut.

Opening the show will be “Luminosity.”

In this arrangement, Rogerson, a young composer whose works have already been lauded by the likes of the Washington Post and the New York Times, has crafted a piece pulsating with energy and orchestral color, Schulz said, which lends the perfect opening to the orchestra’s new season.

The BSO’s production of Beethoven’s “Fourth Piano Concerto” will showcase Rowley’s piano talents, along with some of what is arguably the most beautiful music the famed composer ever created.

“It’s really uplifting music, but for Beethoven it kind of has a much more beautiful lyrical style to it than some of his more pointed or angular works,” Schulz said of the show’s second piece.

“All five of his piano concertos are very popular,” he added. “But this and the Fifth, I would venture to say, get the most performances. And rightly so, it’s just really engaging music.”

Rowley has taught and performed in the summer festivals for the French-American Vocal Academy in Salzburg and France as well as numerous festivals in the United States. He has recorded highly praised solo discs of Chopin, Liszt, Mompou, Granados and American composers Richard Cumming, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and David Guion.

The show’s final piece, Nielsen’s “Symphony No. 3,” sees Stephens and Robertson join the orchestra to perform unique wordless vocal solos in the second movement.

“It’s meant to add color more than any specific rhythm,” Schulz said of the vocal parts. “The challenge is to make it sound as natural and easy as possible without having anything to say.”

Both vocalists agreed that it was a unique but creatively challenging piece to perform.

“Since there’s no words it’s just ‘ah,’ [and] it’s an unusual thing,” Stephens said. “You have put a meaning to the ‘ah.’”

Robertson agreed, saying that the piece required the vocalists to think more like instrumentalists.

“This is my introduction to Carl Nielsen actually,” said the soprano. “It’s going to be very beautiful.

“The challenge is that, as a vocalist, we’re actually being treated like an instrument within the orchestra,” she added. “Of course we’re more used to having some text or maybe a specific melody we can latch on to and the orchestra kind of supports that.”

The start times for the opening concerts of the season are 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15.

A pre-concert chat will be offered on Sunday at 2:15 p.m.

Tickets, $19 for adults, and $16 for seniors, students, military and teachers, may be purchased online at www.bainbridgeperformingarts.org, by phone at 206-842-8569 or in person at BPA.