The Madison Symphony Orchestra will host internationally acclaimed violinist Rachel Barton Pine for a series of classical works coupled with performances from local youth orchestra Suzuki Strings that will showcase music by Black composers throughout the world.
Pine, who is from Chicago, will return to Madison for another performance to play to Erich Wolfgang Korngold “Violin Concerto.” Other performances will be works by Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. In addition, Suzuki Strings will perform “Music by Black Composers,” works compiled in a collection created by Pine that features music exclusively by Black composers around the world.
“Madison is very close to my heart,” Pine said. “I’ve been coming on a regular basis since my first performance with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in the late 90s,” Pine said. “I just love the city… and I’m really delighted to be returning.”
The concert will kick off with Mendelssohn’s “Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The piece captures the work of a Shakespearean magical kingdom with its humor of lovers’ entanglements and the grandiose nature of a Thesus court.
Followed will be Korngold’s “Violin Concerto,” which Pine is a history buff of. The concerto is a romantic showpiece from 1945 that incorporates themes from his four Warner Brothers film scores.
“You think, ‘Oh, he just recycled his movies and made them into a violin concerto,” but that’s not true at all. In fact, he had written the violin concerto, but then didn’t have a violinist and orchestra in mind to play it, and so he recycled his violin concerto into the movies,” Pine said.
Films that the concerto was recycled into include four pictures from 1936-1939. The films include “Another Dawn,” “Juarez,” “Anthony Adverse,” and “The Prince and the Pauper.”
“It’s very interesting to see the scenes from the films where he chose to have these melodies, because it gives you an idea of the atmosphere that he intended from this different musical material,” Pine said. “I always recommend that anyone studying the concerto should watch the movies as part of their process to really get some inspiration for what kind of emotions he was trying to capture.”
Before each performance, Suzuki Strings will perform from Pines’ “Music by Black Composers” series.
Pine created the series as part of her foundation, the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation, to advance opportunities to study works by Black composers. The chance to do so is sparse if any opportunity does arrive, but Pine wanted to highlight works often gone unnoticed and unappreciated in the repertoire of orchestral studies.
“We started this project in 2001 to start to collect the music and figure out which pieces would work well for children, because our belief is that if you normalize the inclusion of Black composers from the very beginning of children’s studies… they’ll realize how great the music is as music without any concept of inclusion,” Pine said.
“Music by Black Composers” is offered via its website. It currently consists of three volumes for violins — with plans to continue more editions to complete the series — and plans to produce its first volume for flute soon.
Works come from composers around the world, but also highlight the stories of Black orchestras in the United States during the 1800s. Pine likens the efforts of Black orchestras then, as often unrealized in its contribution to history, in the same regard as how the Negro Baseball League went largely unrecognized in its time.
The series also has a coloring book of 40 of the most important Black composers throughout history, as well as a directory of around 500 living Black composers.
“The primary motivation for our books is to bring this repertoire in history to African American students, so that they can recognize that this is not somebody else’s music, that they have a place in classical music today, but that they also have a very important history with classical music,” Pine said.
Suzuki Strings have embraced the curriculum, Pine said. She plans to visit them when she comes to Madison.
Pine will come to MSO Feb.20-22. Tickets are currently on sale and a full schedule can be found on MSO’s website.
Free prelude discussions will be held before the start of the performances for the community to attend, regardless of whether you bought a ticket.
