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Julien Benichou
The Program
Julien Benichou, guest conductor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - Ballade in A Minor, Op. 33
Ryan M. Hare - Alto Saxophone Concerto (World Premiere, WWS Commission)
Edward Elgar - Enigma Variations
Otis Murphy’s appearance is made possible by the WW Symphony Guest Composer/Artist Fund - Underrepresented Voices
Concert Snapshots
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor was commissioned because his mentor, Edward Elgar, recommended him for the job. This piece helped start Coleridge-Taylor’s career and made him known outside the UK.
Elgar’s Enigma Variations began as a simple tune he played at home, but with his wife’s encouragement, it turned into a famous piece of music.
In addition to composing, Ryan Hare plays bassoon and contrabassoon for the Walla Walla Symphony and other orchestras in the Pacific Northwest.
Want to learn more? Click the button below to explore articles about the composers and the pieces, and read the program notes.
Explore the Music
WINE SPONSOR
Wine from our wine sponsor will be available before the concert and during intermission for $5/glass (all proceeds benefit the Walla Walla Symphony).
About the Guest Artist
Otis Murphy, alto saxophone
Otis Murphy holds the position of Professor of Saxophone and Chair of Woodwinds in the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, joining the faculty at the age of twenty-eight and becoming one of the youngest faculty members in its history. He has performed in more than twenty countries worldwide across four continents: North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Dr. Murphy was a prizewinner in national and international competitions and has performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall (New York City), Casals Hall (Tokyo); and Palau de la Musica (Valencia). Dr. Murphy has performed on more than fifteen recordings, including four solo albums receiving critical acclaim. He performed Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet with Pacifica Quartet on their album, Contemporary Voices, winning the GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
Dr. Murphy has taught as a guest professor at music schools worldwide including the Paris Conservatory, Amsterdam Conservatory, Cologne Academy of Music, London Royal College of Music and many more, and his students have received awards and have careers as performers, educators throughout the world. Dr. Murphy and his wife, pianist Haruko Murphy, live in Bloomington, Indiana as dedicated parents of their six children.
To learn more, visit www.otismurphy-sax.com
Julien Benichou, guest conductor
Julien Benichou is a dynamic conductor and advocate for the future of classical music. He is the General and Artistic Director of the Washington Opera Society (WOS) and Music Director of the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO).
He has guest conducted renowned ensembles such as the New York City Ballet, Annapolis Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and has led orchestras worldwide, including in Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Portugal. Previously, as Music Director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, he elevated the ensemble's quality and expanded its reach.
Benichou is also a skilled opera conductor, having recently led productions of Aida, Faust, and Carmen in Washington, DC. A committed educator, he has taken the CYSO on European tours and conducted at Carnegie Hall.
Benichou holds advanced degrees from Northwestern University and the Peabody Institute and has trained with notable conductors, including Leonard Slatkin and Marin Alsop. He divides his time between Baltimore and Provence.
To learn more, visit www.julienbenichou.com
Program Notes
SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR
Born August 15, 1875, in Holborn, London, England
Died September 1, 1912, in Croydon, Surrey, England
Ballade in A Minor (1898)
Last WWS Performance: First performance at tonight’s concert
Approximate Length: 12 minutes
This work dates from 1898. It is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, not to be confused with the also-hyphenated poet Samuel Taylor-Coleridge, was one of the most celebrated musicians of his day. Born in London to an English mother and a Sierra Leonean physician father, Taylor was of mixed race. The young child was raised by his mother and her parents, as his father had returned to Africa before learning that he was to become a father.
Coleridge, as he was known to all, entered the Royal College of Music at 15 and studied under composer Charles Villiers Stanford. After graduation he soon began a conducting career, but he soon gained notoriety as a composer. Edward Elgar and publisher August Jaeger were important early champions of Taylor’s music. His 1898 Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast became popular in Europe and the United States, which led Taylor to make three tours of the U.S. He became interested in his father’s heritage as a descendent of former American slaves who had repatriated to Africa.
Despite worldwide success, Taylor’s financial situation was dire. He died at 37 of pneumonia. A memorial concert at Royal Albert Hall was held to raise funds for the family he left behind at his death. £1400 were raised, which is roughly $43,000 in 2023. His legacy includes the passage of copyright laws in the U.S. and U.K., as Taylor sold the rights for Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast for only 15 guineas. His music is currently enjoying a well-deserved resurgence.
When Samuel Coleridge-Taylor entered the Royal College of Music he began writing music very quickly. In his first year he wrote and published six choral works. Notice from this music led to his first commission. The Three Choirs Festival had asked Elgar to compose a new work, but he was too busy. He wrote to the director, “I wish, wish, wish you would ask Coleridge-Taylor to do it. He still wants recognition, and he is far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the young men.”
Coleridge-Taylor composed his Ballade in A Minor for the event. Far from the character of the Chopin ballades, this dazzling work is a wild and clever piece written in stanzas but infused with energetic rhythms and charming themes.
© 2024 Orpheus Music Prose & Craig Doolin
www.orpheusnotes.com
RYAN M. HARE
Born in 1970, in Reno, Nevada
Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (2022)
Last WWS Performance: World Premiere at this concert
Approximate length: 22 minutes
© Stuart Murtland
This work is scored for solo alto saxophone, flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two French horns, one trumpet, two trombones, timpani, percussion, piano, and strings.
Commissioned by the Walla Walla Symphony (WWS), with funding generously provided by Richard D. Simon, M.D., this Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra was completed on March 23, 2022, with the bulk of sketching and composing of the first movement done in 2021. The Concerto is dedicated to the WWS and also to one of my favorite places, the beautiful city of Walla Walla, Washington. Additional small revisions to the score were made in 2023 and 2024.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when concerts were canceled worldwide and all my musician friends and I were abruptly out of work, I composed a series of short, unaccompanied pieces, entitled “Lyric Études,” for any musician who requested one. The idea was to nurture the musical relationships that we all missed during the time live musical performances were impossible.
The fifth of these, composed in 2020, is for saxophone. In many of these pieces, I already heard a latent potential in them to be expanded somehow into larger-scale compositions. Dr. Simon was so taken with Lyric Étude No. 5 that he decided to find a way for this idea to be realized, for me to compose a concerto for the WWSO making use of the themes and motifs from the fifth étude. I am extraordinarily grateful to him for his enthusiasm for my music, and for making this project happen!
In most concertos, the soloist is treated more or less as the protagonist of an imaginary narrative or conflict, and this concerto is no exception. While I often encourage the listener to imagine for themselves, if they wish, images or stories to accompany my music while they listen, it does seem worth sharing the dramatic concept I had in mind for this concerto from the earliest sketches. The first movement represents the soloist/protagonist in peril: a risky situation, freely accepted and undertaken. The soloist reveals great confidence and ability, but as the course of the movement proceeds the risk only increases, and the movement ends with a feeling of unresolved anxiety. The second movement represents the turning point; the soloist must look inward to find resolution. There is an epiphany, and the movement ends in an atmosphere of richly earned calm. The third movement, then, might be described as none other than “time to party!” The difficulties overcome are not forgotten, but the music I hope conveys a sense of fun, and ultimate acceptance.
SIR EDWARD ELGARD
Born June 2, 1857, at Broadheath, near Worcester, England
Died February 23, 1934, at Worcester, England
Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, Enigma (1899)
Last WWS Performance: October 7, 2014
Approximate length: 30 minutes
This work was first performed on June 19, 1899, in St. James Hall in London, England, with Hans Richter conducting. In addition to solo violin, it is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, organ (optional), and strings.
Sir Edward Elgar is considered by many to have been the quintessential English composer. His music is filled with the stirring themes that make one think of all the pomp of circumstance of coronation, the beauty of the English countryside, and the reserved sophistication that represents British-ness in the minds of many. However, his own countrymen were slow to accept his music. He was nearly fifty years of age before his reputation was sealed with the premiere of one work – the Enigma Variations.
As many have explained, there are three puzzles in this work. Elgar’s main theme, which returns in various guises throughout the work, is entitled “Enigma,” but no solution is given as to its meaning. Most scholars believe that the puzzle is simply a musical setting of the rhythm of the composer’s own name. Elgar’s other two enigmas are perhaps best explained using his own words:
“It is true that I have sketched for their amusement and mine the idiosyncrasies of fourteen of my friends, not necessarily musicians, but this is a personal matter and need not have been mentioned publicly. (The initials, however, appear in the printed score.) The variations should stand simply as a ‘piece’ of music. The Enigma I will not explain. Its dark saying must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture. Further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played. So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some late dramas – e.g. Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept Princesses – the chief character is never on the stage.”
As to the larger enigma, it remains unsolved. However, the smaller puzzle of connecting initials to Elgar’s friends was cracked by the composer himself when he revealed the solution in 1920. Presented below, each musical variation reflects certain defining characteristics of each of its subjects.
Variation I (C.A.E.): Caroline Alice Elgar was the composer’s wife. The tender and sentimental quality of this variation blends seamlessly with the theme.
Variation II (H.D.S-P): Elgar’s pianist friend Hew David Steuart-Powell was a pianist who played trios with Elgar (violin) and Basil G. Nevinson (cello). The pianistic type of runs in the violins at the opening suggests the exercises of Steuart-Powell, warming up his fingers.
Variation III (R.B.T.): Richard Baxter Townshend was an actor whose voice was capable of unusual changes of pitch. He was also known for his incessant ringing of a bell as he rode a tricycle around Oxford. Upper strings and woodwinds state the variation, followed by growling basses.
Variation IV (W.M.B.): R.B.T.’s brother-in-law, William Meath Baker, was a man of great energy and one fiery in argument. His eccentricities, especially his habit of slamming doors in anger, are expressed in this musical portrait, relying on brass and heavy timpani.
Variation V (R.P.A.): Richard Penrose Arnold, son of Matthew Arnold, was a man of changing moods and comic witticisms. His characteristic laugh is heard in this variation.
Variation VI (Ysobel): Isabel Fitton was a very tall viola student for whom Elgar wrote a set of practice exercises. Both the exercise and her stature are reflected in this viola-centric variation.
Variation VII (Troyte): Arthur Troyte Griffith was an architect who designed Elgar’s house at Malvern. He was a man of excitable and tempestuous temperament, who dabbled as an amateur pianist. Elgar gave noble effort to help this dear friend learn to play the instrument, but these efforts led inevitably to an exasperated slam of the keyboard lid.
Variation VIII (W.N.): Elgar’s neighbor, Winifred Norbury, is honored with a variation that pays homage to her gracious old-world courtesy. It leads without pause to the most famous of Elgar’s variations.
Variation IX (Nimrod): This most eloquent of all the variations is a tribute to the composer’s close friend, A.J. Jaeger, editor of The Musical Times and adviser to the firm of Novello, which published many of Elgar’s compositions. (In German “Jaeger” means “hunter – thus the reference to “Nimrod” the mighty hunter.)
Variation X (Dorabella - Intermezzo): Dorabella refers to Miss Dora Penny, the daughter of a local parson. Elgar favored the nickname “Dorabella” because of the reference to the bright practicality of Mozart’s character in Cosi fan tutte. Even her pronounced stammer is reflected in this variation.
Variation XI (G.R.S.): Dr. George Robertson Sinclair was the organist of Hereford Cathedral, who was also known for his loveable bulldog named Dan. The chordal brass suggests the sound of the organ, while the playful and puckish string writing represents Dan. A delightful story relates how Dan rolled down the bank of the River Wye, only to swim upstream to the shore where he barked loudly.
Variation XII (B.G.N.): Basil G. Nevinson was a cellist who played in Elgar’s piano trio. Elgar described this variation as "a tribute to a very dear friend whose scientific and artistic attainments, and the wholehearted way they were put at the disposal of his friends, particularly endeared him to the writer."
Variation XIII (***): The original inscription of a trio of asterisks was later found to mask a reference to Lady Mary Lygon, who was at the time en route to Australia. For the intimate group of friends who could even hope to understand the reference, Elgar inserted a clarinet solo with a phrase from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. The pulse of drums is said to represent the hum of the ship’s engines.
Variation XIV (E.D.U.): The Finale, elaborate and heavily orchestrated, is both a self-portrait and a musical culmination. (“Edoo” was the composer’s wife’s nickname for her husband.) The work ends in a broad presentation of the theme in a stately major key.
©2024 Orpheus Music Prose & Craig Doolin
www.orpheusnotes.com