Join The Symphony for a musical encounter featuring the ethereal blue cathedral by acclaimed composer Jennifer Higdon and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Christopher Rouse’s explosive and passionate Flute Concerto, featuring The Symphony’s very own Principal Flutist Jesse Tatum. Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony rounds out the program.
The Santa Fe Symphony
Guillermo Figueroa, Principal Conductor
PROGRAM
JENNIFER HIGDON
blue cathedral
CHRISTOPHER ROUSE
Flute Concerto
Jesse Tatum, Principal Flute
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK
Symphony No. 8 in G Major, op.88
Allegro con brio
Adagio
Allegretto grazioso — Molto vivace
Allegro ma non troppo
Of Note
“Blue–like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals–a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression, serving as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world. Blue represents all potential and the progression of journeys. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky.” —Jennifer Higdon
Christopher Rouse stated in his Program Note for the Flute Concerto that only isolated, individual tragedies serve to sensitize us to the potential harm man can do to his fellow man. He references the abduction and brutal murder of the two-year old English boy James Bulger at the hands of a pair of ten-year old boys. He followed that case closely during the time he was composing his concerto, and ultimately made the central movement an elegy dedicated to Bulger’s memory and senseless death.
“Melodies pour out of me,” Dvořák wrote to a friend in the summer of 1889. “If only one could write them down straight away!” In this case, he did―it took the composer only 16 days to compose the Eighth Symphony.
Jesse Tatum, Flute
Jesse Tatum currently serves as Principal Flute of The Santa Fe Symphony. She is also Principal Flute of the Opera Southwest Orchestra and a Principal Player at Chatter, an innovative Albuquerque-based chamber ensemble. Additionally, she has performed with numerous other musical organizations including The Santa Fe Opera, Performance Santa Fe and the New Mexico Philharmonic.
Guillermo Figueroa, principal conductor
One of the most versatile and respected musical artists of his generation—renowned as conductor, violinist, violist and concertmaster—Guillermo Figueroa is the Principal Conductor of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. He also serves as the Music Director of the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado and Music Director of the Lynn Philharmonia in Florida, and is the founder of the highly acclaimed Figueroa Music and Arts Project in Albuquerque.
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Program Notes
Composer Christophe Rouse said that "although no universal credence for the Jungian concept of 'genetic memory' exists, for me it seems a profoundly viable notion. Although both of my parents’ families immigrated to America well before the Revolutionary War, I nonetheless still feel a deep ... "…
Media
SFS LIVES: Flutist Jesse TatumPosted by The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus on Friday, May 8, 2020