PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 2023 @ 7:30 PM

POTTER CENTER

Section A: $35
Section B: $30
Section C $20
Student Tickets: $5

It’s an artistic extravaganza! The JSO presents works inspired by the visual arts including the famous Pictures at an Exhibition. You won’t want to miss our performance that opens with speed painter Evan Struck on stage with the JSO. Violinist Ida Kavafian performs Michael Daugherty’s violin concerto Fire and Blood inspired by Detroit murals by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The JSO also welcomes back Jeremy Crosmer for a world premiere inspired by the work of Jackson-born artist Philip Campbell Curtis. The surrealist painter’s work will be on display at the Potter Center through March. We close the concert with animation synced to our performance of Pictures at an Exhibition. You won’t want to miss a single moment of this performance packed with visual art!

PRE-CONCERT CONVERSATION
Join us for a free, interactive lecture before the concert at 6:30pm.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Michael Daugherty
LudWig from Fifteen-Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol

Fifteen-Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol Inspired by the art of Andy Warhol, famous for being the world’s most recognizable proponent of Pop Art, and for his wry quotation: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

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William Grant Still
Mother and Child <1943>

Mother and Child William Grant Still Jr. was an American composer of nearly two hundred works. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Because of his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, Still is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Michael Daugherty
Fire and Blood <2003>
Ida Kavafian, Violin

Fire and Blood Considered among his best works, Diego Rivera’s extraordinary “Detroit Industry” murals have inspired this musical fresco. It was Rivera himself who predicted turning his murals into music, after a tour of the Ford factories: “In my ears, I heard the wonderful symphony which came from his factories where metals were shaped into tools for men’s service. It was a new music, waiting for the composer…to give it communicable form.”

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— INTERMISSION —

Jeremy Crosmer
Commission in honor of Philip C. Curtis <2023>

Check back for more details.

Modest Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel) (Kartinki s vïstavki) <1874>

Pictures at an Exhibition The composition is based on pictures by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann. Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten piano pieces composed in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky’s most famous piano composition, and it has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists.

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RUNTIME: 1H 45M

MUSIC PREVIEW

AFTERPARTY

The JSO is debuting its new Afterparties this season with tickets available to all who want to continue the celebration after the concert has ended. Tickets coming soon.

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GUEST ARTISTS

JEREMY CROSMER
Composer

Jeremy Crosmer is a remarkable young artist, both as a cellist and a composer. Crosmer completed multiple graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in cello, composition, and theory pedagogy, and received his D.M.A. in 2012 at age 24. From 2012 to 2017 he served as the Assistant Principal Cellist in the Grand Rapids Symphony, and joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in May of 2017. He is a recipient of the 2021 Ford Musician Award for Excellence in Community Service, presented by the League of American Orchestras, for his work piloting the DSO’s partnership with Kadima Mental Health Services.

Additionally, he is the composer and arranger for the GRS Music for Health Initiative, connecting symphony musicians with music therapists in hospitals. Crosmer is a founding member of the modern music ensemble Latitude 49, and a current member of the band ESME, a pop-classical mash-up duo that released its first CD in December of 2016. Crosmer was awarded the prestigious Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award to publish, record, and perform his Crosmer-Popper duets. In 2021, Crosmer created a database of free, digital editions of music by Classical Black Composers, arranged or transcribed for string quartet, with over 33 pieces available on his website. Crosmer has taught music theory, pre-calculus, and cello at universities across Michigan. Crosmer’s ties to Jackson are deep: he and his wife Jingyi were happily married at the Jackson County Courthouse in 2019, and he has served as a judge for the Miss Jackson Crossroads scholarship pageant. His partnership with Matthew Aubin began in 2018, and since then he has written numerous pieces for the Jackson Symphony Orchestra.

MICHAEL DAUGHERTY
Composer

Multiple GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has achieved international recognition as one of the ten most performed American composers of concert music, according to the League of American Orchestras. His orchestral music, recorded by Naxos over the last two decades, has received six GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 for Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra and in 2017 for Tales of Hemingway for cello and orchestra. Current commissions for 2020 include new orchestral works for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Omaha Symphony and a concerto for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers who will give the world premiere with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in 2021.

Michael Daugherty was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1954 and is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. As a young man, Daugherty studied composition with many of the preeminent composers of the 20th century including Pierre Boulez at IRCAM in Paris (1979), Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds at Yale (1980-82), and György Ligeti in Hamburg (1982-84). Daugherty was also an assistant to jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York from 1980-82. In 1991, Daugherty joined the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance as Professor of Composition, where he is a mentor to many of today’s most talented young composers. He is also a frequent guest of professional orchestras, festivals, universities and conservatories around the world.

Daugherty’s music is published by Peermusic Classical/Faber Music, Boosey & Hawkes and Michael Daugherty Music. For more information on Michael Daugherty and his music, see his publisher’s websites.

IDA KAVAFIAN
Violin & Viola

In 2019, Ida Kavafian completed her 35-year tenure as artistic director of the renowned chamber music festival, Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico. Under her leadership, MFAF commissioned over 40 new works and brought over 200 young artists to the festival. A frequent artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for more than 40 years and former violinist of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, Ms. Kavafian currently performs as a soloist; in recital with her sister, violinist Ani Kavafian; as a guest with distinguished ensembles; and as a faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music.

She’s premiered many new works, toured and recorded with fiddler/composer Mark O’Connor and with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and had a solo feature on CBS Sunday Morning. She premiered and recorded Michael Daugherty’s violin concerto Fire and Blood with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and, as a violist, toured and recorded with the Guarneri Quartet and performed with the Orion, Shanghai, and American string quartets. Founder of the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado, which she ran for 10 years, and co-founder of the groundbreaking group TASHI more than 40 years ago, Ms. Kavafian also co-founded the groups OPUS ONE and Trio Valtorna. She holds the Nina von Maltzahn Chair in Violin Studies at Curtis, where she was awarded the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Ida Kavafian was born in Istanbul, Turkey, of Armenian parentage and is married to violist Steven Tenenbom. She began her musical studies with Ara Zerounian, continued with Mischa Mischakoff, and graduated from The Juilliard School as a student of Oscar Shumsky. She was presented in her debut by Young Concert Artists with pianist Peter Serkin. Ms. Kavafian has also found great success in another field: the breeding, training, and showing of prizewinning Hungarian Vizsla dogs, including the number one Vizsla in the United States in 2003, the national champion in 2007, and a top ten gold grand champion in 2018.

EVAN STRUCK
Speed Painter

Evan Struck is one of America’s most In-Demand Speed Painters while charting new paths in every city he performs in! With the title of “America’s Interactive Speed Painter”, each of Evan’s paintings are completed in only 5-10 minutes while incorporating theatrical and, sometimes, multiple canvases, blacklights, and audience participation.

Evan grew up in Jackson, a small town in Southern Michigan where he is surrounded by his amazing family of five. Struck began taking art classes in middle school where he started having a passion for creativity. In his early years of high school, Evan discovered Speed Painting through watching youtube videos online. After learning about the skillset that is Speed Painting, he performed his first painting at his school’s talent show. From then on he began working on perfecting his craft which now has lead to performances across the country.

Outside of Speed Painting Evan also paints Exterior Murals honoring local heroes and local history. On top of including powerful words and messaging in his designs. Evan also owns his own Paint and Sip company ”My Masterpiece” offering easy instruction kits sent to customers across the nation.

Pictures at an Exhibition

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 2023 @ 7:30 PM

POTTER CENTER

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

MUSIC PREVIEW

AFTERPARTY

GUEST ARTISTS

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