ORPHEUS ACADEMY 2017
at Oregon Music Festival
Presenter Information

Our Orpheus Academy is a fully-scholarshipped, merit-based summer immersion academy in which talented young musicians ages 15-25 have the opportunity to perform as an orchestra, with professional level repertoire, schedule, and in collaboration with our international cast of soloists. Our Orpheus Academy is available during our festival season for touring performances.

Touring Requirements: 
  • Seating and space for 41 musicians. (Music stands are preferred by not absolutely necessary.)
  • Appropriate accoustics for a symphonic performance.
  • Sufficient seating for an audience of at least 100.
  • Enough lighting on stage for the musicians to read their music, and preferably the ability to control the light over the audience.

We welcome the opportunity to perform in a non-traditional space. Because this is an educational program and heavily supported by donations, we are looking for a venue partnership for all touring performances.
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Concert One: Bernstein, Story Without Words

The signature piece of this evening is the West Coast premier of a modern arrangement of Bernstein’s West Side Story as a Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra. Arranged by Randall Fleicher and originally premiered by the Chicago Sinfonietta in 2012, Fleischer wrote of the original, “this brilliant show encompasses almost the entire range of the human experience within one evening.”

​Also on the docket is Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, originally written as a serenade for his childhood friend’s noblization ceremony. Though Sigmund Haffner, born the same year as Mozart, moved in more highly regarded circles than the Mozart family (a family of mere entertainers), the commission came when Mozart had just left the “coarse, slovenly, dissolute court musicians” of Saltzburg far more urbane Vienna. While the commission was completed too late for the ceremony, Mozart turned the ceremony into the commercially successful Haffner Symphony.  The Haffner Symphony is followed by the delicately polyphonic Canzone No. 1 from Martinů’s Toccata e due canzoni, Op. H.311 written after the composer relearned how to walk after a bad fall resulting in a fractured skull. The piece begins with a stately march, ending in an anguished series of falling triplets and chromatic lines before closing as it began.

Ulysses Quartet, Grand Prize and Gold Medal winners of Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. 

​​CONCERT DETAILS
​Ensemble:
ORPHEUS ACADEMY ORCHESTRA
The premiere regional, scholarship-based orchestra for advanced young musicians

Dates available:
Monday, June 19, 2017  
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
​Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Featured artists:   
Ulysses Quartet
            Grand Prize and Gold Medal winners of Fischoff                   National Chamber Music Competition
Travis Hatton, conductor 

Repertoire    
Mozart: Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K.385 "Haffner" 
Martinů: Canzone No. 1       
                from Toccata e due canzoni, Op. H.311 (1946)
Bernstein/Fleischer: West Side Story Concerto for String                           Quartet and Orchestra

Concert Two: Double Fireworks


​DOUBLE FIREWORKS
Schnittke’s Cadenza, Rondo & Postludio from Concerto Grosso No. 1, which the composer called a “play of three spheres, the Baroque, the Modern and the banal” in which the composer incorporated his grandmother’s favourite tango, a  Soviet children’s choral, and quotes from his movie scores. Schnittke immerses the audience in a swirl of musical fragments, oddities and nostalgia. Schnittke’s work is followed by Bruch’s Double Concerto, written by the staunch romanticist in 1911 for his gifted son, Max Feliz Bruch (clarinetist), the full score was originally destroyed in WWII but resurfaced in London at Christie’s auction house in 1991. Hear this rare and beautiful concerto performed by the husband/wife team of Dimitri Ashkenazy, clarinet and Ada Meinich, viola (Norway). We conclude the evening with Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, K 543 the first of a trilogy of his last symphonies.
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​A young and up-and-coming Brazilian conductor leads Orpheus Academy in the works of Mozart, Schnittke and Bruch.

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Igor Daniel Ruschel, conductor, Brazil
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Dimitri Ashkenazy, clarinet, Switzerland
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Ada Meinich, viola, Norway
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Carla Trynchuk, violin, USA
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Dechopol Kowintaweewat, Academy Concertmaster (First violin, Zora Quartet) Thailand

CONCERT DETAILS

Ensemble
ORPHEUS ACADEMY ORCHESTRA
​The premiere regional, scholarship-based orchestra for advanced young musicians

Concert dates available:
Thursday, June 29
Friday, June 30 
​Sunday, July 1

Featured artists: 
Dimitri Ashkenazy, clarinet (Switzerland)  
Ada Meinich, viola (Norway)
Carla Trynchuk, violin (Canada/USA)
Dechopol Kowintaweewat (Top), violin (Thailand) 
Igor Daniel Ruschel, conductor (Brazil)

Repertoire
Schnittke: Cadenza, Rondo &  Postludio 
                from Concerto Grosso No. 1    
                for two violins, harpsichord,
                prepared piano, and 21 strings
Bruch: Double Concerto 
                for clarinet, viola and orchestra  
Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, K 543


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