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Newport
Musical Festival
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| For
three consecutive summers, the quintet had the
good fortune to be included in one of the
longest-running chamber music festivals in the
country. It
is held in several of the palatial mansions in
Newport, Rhode Island.
These mansions were referred to as
"cottages" by their original owners,
fabulously wealthy families like the Astors and
the Vanderbilts. They
are much more like castles, and the |
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| setting
on Newport Harbor is exquisite. Today many of them are operated more like stunning museums. |
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| The
way the festival is run, individual musicians are sought
out by the festival director. He also selects all the music and puts the musicians into the
necessary groupings for each selection.
In the case of Boston Brass, he hired the quintet
"as is", to perform it's repertoire.
By doing this he allowed the quintet to retained
its individual feel -- he also did this with a few
string quartets. |
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The
festival runs over a period of about three weeks, and
there are an average of three concerts every day,
sometimes four. Some
of these begin as late as 11:00 pm -- one even starts
traditionally at midnight!
The necessary rehearsals are fit in between. Needless to say it can be a most busy experience.
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1995
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| The
first concerts that included Boston Brass were typical
of the kind of programming that Dr. Malkovich loves to
do. On this
Tuesday morning the quintet began the program, then a
mezzo-soprano and piano duo performed, and then a
violin/piano duo. After
intermission was a piano soloist, and the program ended
with a cello/piano duo.
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| This
concert's theme was "Slavophilia".
The two contributions made by Boston Brass were
"Festive Overture" of Shostakovich -- an
exciting arrangement done by the quintet's original
Tubist, Velvet Brown – followed by my setting of the
Borodin "In The Steppes of Central Asia". |
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| The
next day, again at 11:00 am, Boston Brass was part of a
program entitled "Forgotten Airs".
Also on the program were two piano soloists, a
viola/piano duo and a mezzo-soprano/piano duo.
On this program the quintet was used to conclude
the performance. The selections included a delightful
four movement suite of "Four Spanish Renaissance
Villancicos" arranged by Karl Hinterbichler; a most
lively "Tarantella" of Mendelssohn arrange by
Alan Civil; the beautiful song "Love's
Calendar" (1900), by Henry K. Hadley, which I
arranged; and the concert ended with my setting of
"Forgotten Fairy Tales", by Edward MacDowell.
This last selection, along with the Borodin and
then Shostakovich, were on the quintet's third
recording, "Fire In The Chamber."
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| 1996 |
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| The
quintet's second season at Newport was when the
festival director (Dr. Mark P. Malkovich, III)
had planned to feature much of the music of
Tchaikovsky.
Our concert was scheduled to be on one of
the "Serenade At Sea" concerts, which
took place on a cruise boat in Newport Harbor. |
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| The
unique and varied program that we proposed fit exactly
with what Dr. Malkovich wanted.
Opening with a blazing "Overture from
Russlan and Ludmilla" that I had arranged (and the
quintet had recorded), the "Russian tone" was
definitely set. Even
though the program moved through the varied styles of
composers like Mozart, Purcell and Scarlatti, the second
half brought us back with the intensity of Tcahikovsky's
"Andante Cantabile".
In arranging this, I had to be careful not to
write in too thick a manner -- after all, it was
originally for a string quartet. |
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| After
that dramatic piece, the program lightened noticeably
with a Gilbert-and-Sullivan-like "Overture to The
Doctor of Alcantara".
I discovered this oddity at a local music
library, and it was included on the Boston Brass CD,
"Stealing The Show".
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program concluded with a five-movement suite from
"The Nutcracker", one of my earliest
arrangements and the first ever to be published (1990).
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| 1997 |
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| This
was the third and final summer Boston Brass was there.
The quintet did two different programs, both
taking place on the first day s of the festival. The first one was in the evening at the cottage called
"The Breakers", which is probably the grandest
cottage of them all.
This event was a two-part program.
The first half of the 9:00 pm program was a
stand-up comedian named Mark Schiff.
We were told that this is the one comedian that
Jerry Seinfeld does NOT like to follow, because he is so
consistently funny. Our half of the program was comprised of many of the jazz
arrangements that are on the Boston Brass CD "Young
Fogeys", and it closed with my exclusive
arrangement of "Casa Loma Stomp".
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The
next day's concert was on a cruise boat that went on a
three-hour tour of Newport Harbor.
The quintet's program was in two parts.
The first was "classical", with music by
such composers as Scheidt, Renwick, including two of my
original, exclusive arrangements: "In The Steppes of
Central Asia" by Borodin, and "Tournament Galop"
by Gottschalk.
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The
program ended with several of the jazz selections, and
thus ended Boston Brass' part of the Newport Music
Festival.
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