Welcome to the 2010-2011 season at the Philadelphia Orchestra!  

My name is Amalya Lehmann and I am the new editor of the eZseatU blog. I am a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, studying musicology, cognitive science, and violin. As one of the eZseatU campus representatives, you will see me attending Philadelphia Orchestra concerts almost weekly!

As Philadelphia-area students, we are extremely lucky to have the opportunity to attend concerts by one of the leading orchestras in the world, for only $25 a year. Whether you are just getting into classical music, or you have listened to classical music and attended concerts for years, there will be a concert for you!

For students on both ends of the spectrum, you don’t want to miss your first opportunity to attend a concert this year—the Orchestra's FREE College Concert, on Tuesday, September 28, at 8 pm!

The program begins with chief conductor Charles Dutoit leading the Le Corsaire Overture by one of his favorite composers, Hector Berlioz, composer of the famous Symphonie Fantastique.

The program follows with Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire and one of the most beloved to violinists: all advanced violinists feel like they reach a significant milestone when they finish working on ‘THE Mendelssohn’! The Concerto’s first movement begins with a beautiful, soaring melody, and features a thrilling end to the cadenza, full of butterfly-like string crossings, with the orchestra playing the opening theme. The second movement is slow and warm by contrast, featuring elegant and bittersweet melodies in the solo violin part, accompanied by a murmuring and rousing orchestra. The work ends with the brilliant, bubbly, and fast last movement.

You may have heard him play the soundtrack to the Academy-award winning film The Red Violin, or have seen him featured as one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. You may have also read about his experiment with the Washington Post, in which he entered a Washington D.C. Metro Station, wore a baseball cap, and started playing violin to passersby. World-renowned American violinist Joshua Bell is sure to play a beautiful account of the Concerto at this concert. Bell made his professional debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 14, and in the years since, has performed all over the world, and released numerous CD’s, including collaborations with Regina Spektor, Sting, and Bela Fleck.

In the second half of the program, the Orchestra begins its celebration of Gustav Mahler’s 150th Birthday with a performance of his appropriately named Symphony No. 1 (“The Titan”), one of his most ambitious works that reshaped what could be included in a symphony. Full of Mahler’s own songs, klezmer, street dances, and a funeral march based on the popular tune “Frère Jacques”, this piece inspired wild reactions at its first performances due to its unconventional structure, material, and emotional character. Be sure to stick around for this epic masterpiece!

Besides this fantastic program, there will be a number of festivities marking this special annual event, ranging from live band performances to meeting the Orchestra’s musicians to receiving an autograph from Joshua Bell. Best of all, you will have the opportunity to meet and mingle with other music lovers your age, studying in Philadelphia-area colleges.

So mark your calendars, reserve your ticket, and invite your friends—this is a night not to be missed! See you then!

--Amalya Lehmann

Check out this video as the Neo-African Drums 'n Dance Group from LaSalle University are joined by a few of our very own eZseatU members at College Night!

--David Gottlieb

Musician Spotlight: Noah Geller

Who is your favorite underrated composer?
My favorite underrated composer is Korngold. He wrote amazing chamber music and an amazing violin concerto and symphonies. The reason he’s underrated – or not taken as seriously – is because he was a Hollywood composer. People never really respected his serious compositions that much, but I think they’re fantastic.

What’s the hardest piece you’ve ever had to play with the Orchestra?
Everything’s hard. Well, not everything is hard, but one of the pieces I find most challenging actually is Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. I guess in terms of learning notes, playing a lot of difficult passagework – Mahler is very challenging, especially for the first violins, there’s a lot of leaping around. But once you learn it – once you learn anything, it becomes less challenging.

I guess there are different types of difficulty. There’s rhythmic difficulty – which you would get a lot in a composer like Stravinsky, where the notes aren’t really hard to play but playing them in the right place is difficult, like in the Rite of Spring. And then, there’s someone like Mahler, who writes a lot of notes, and Wagner – oh my God. Wagner – he writes tons of notes, so that’s time consuming. And then there’s difficulty like Beethoven, where everything has to be just right, you know, Beethoven and Mozart – right together, and rhythmically very precise but also very beautiful. That’s how I’d classify the difficulties of orchestra playing.

If the whole music thing hadn’t worked out, what would you imagine yourself doing right now?
Lying in a ditch. I don’t know. It’s not really an option—It’s what I had to do.

Favorite way to unwind after a killer performance?
Go out with friends to Monk’s.

Favorite band/group to see in concert?
I like going to all kinds of concerts – I used to be super into Rock concerts when I was a teenager. Probably one of my highlights was at the DRC pavilion with David Bowie in concert. And then, of course, I also love seeing classical concerts. I used to really love going to Carnegie Hall to see all the orchestras from Europe – they all came through New York, when I was in school, and I got a lot of inspiration from those concerts.

What is your guiltiest musical pleasure?
80’s music.

How did you manage to avoid distractions in college to practice violin?
Well, I would sort of reward my distractions with more practice. If I were extra debaucherous I would make myself practice more the next day.

Have you ever used the fact that you work for The Philadelphia Orchestra as a pick-up line?
No. It doesn’t hurt – but it also doesn’t seal the deal.

How do you determine whether to respond to the conductor immediately or with a slight delay?
It depends how clear the conductor is, and what kind of cue he gives – the upbeat. If he gives a slow, more indirect upbeat, we’ll probably play a little later.

That’s actually a very interesting question, because I had no idea, when I first came into the orchestra, where to play. A buddy of mine said: don’t play when the stick comes down – he said, play when it reaches the top. The stick will come up, and then will come down, and go up. If you play at the top, then you have time to react – everyone has time to react together, and then that’s one of the ways we can all read the conductor in a similar way, rather than all of trying to play when he gives the downbeat. [However], in rhythmic passages, you have to be with the conductor –assuming that he’s clear – because if we played behind, it would become a mess. In a rhythmic-like tempo, we tend to play more on the beat.

How else do you express yourself musically (aside from the orchestra), and how does that impact your life as an orchestra musician?
I’d say the way I derive the most inspiration aside from the orchestra is playing chamber music. I’m really lucky to have a number of wonderful colleagues who are excellent chamber musicians, as good as they get. So I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of musicians from the orchestra regularly, and that’s been a great thing for me, coming here. That kind of keeps me fresh, makes me stay on top of my solo playing, in addition to working in the orchestra, which is a sort of different style of playing.

--David Gottlieb

Brahms and a reflective Shostakovich...

Brahms' Violin Concerto did for its genre what his symphonies and quintets did for theirs: it cemented Brahms' status as what many now consider the final composer in a stylistic chain beginning with Bach and furthered on by Beethoven: the 3 'B's who form the Patron Saints of Classical Music. Written shortly after his Second Symphony, this concerto is widely considered one of the greatest and more demanding of the violin repertoire. While more technically difficult pieces have been crafted since, Brahms moves far beyond technical prowess as the focal point of this work, insisting on a clarity of emotion throughout the concerto's continually impressing moments. An example of the idea of music taking precedence over virtuosity alone, an outlook that often dooms lesser one-dimensional concerti, is his cadenza of the final movement, where the last dizzying violin passages are accompanied by the orchestra. This unorthodox move (the solo instrument normally alone in the penultimate moments) creates a greater level of excitement and one of the best finales of any Violin Concerto. Janine Jansen will make wonderful work of this joyous piece, so go watch the strings fireworks!

On the other half of the program is 20th Century Soviet composer Shostakovich's 11th Symphony, subtitled "The Year 1905". This piece takes aim at pre-Soviet history, written about the year when the Tzar's bodyguards shot and killed many peaceful working-class protesters in the Imperial Palace Square. Shostakovich wrote this populist piece - to be his most popular since his also political "Leningrad" Symphony - at a curious point in Soviet history: one year after the brutally put down Hungarian Revolution of 1956. As such, some tend to view it as a commentary on that event, drawing a parallel from the Soviet decimation of Hungarian resistance to the government sanctioned killings of protesters in 1905. Or is the piece merely concerned with solemnly reflecting on the tragic turning point in Russian history that was the Bloody Sunday of 1905? The great part of Shostakovich's music is that regardless of political intent - which is oft murky and left to speculation - his music stands just as easily without it. However, his works often often can bend both ways, and determining whether this piece - which is rather transparent - is meant as a work representing the future horrors to be suffered by the subjects of the Soviet Union or a deep and solemn look at a critical moment in Russian history that helped start the clock on the Tzar's rule, remains to you. Enjoy finding out!

Thursday February 25, 2010 8:00 PM
Friday February 26, 2010 2:00 PM
Saturday February 27, 2010 8:00 PM
Sunday February 28, 2010 2:00 PM

--David Gottlieb

College Night: Beethoven's Fifth

Join us for an evening of free food, beverages, and networking with the Orchestra's musicians immediately following the performance of Beethoven's Fifth on January 28. And remember, as a member of eZseatU, you can bring as many as 4 guests for the special $8 per ticket add-on rate!

Log on to www.philorch.org/ezseatu to reserve your tickets for the concert. An eZseatU membership is NOT required to attend this event.

--David Gottlieb