George Shangrow Memorial Concert

Sunday, November 14, 2010 • 7:00 p.m.
Benaroya Hall

Orchestra Seattle
Seattle Chamber Singers
Roupen Shakarian, conductor
Jeffrey Cohan, flute
Catherine Haight, soprano
Brian Box, baritone
Kathryn Weld, alto
Mark Salman, piano
Jessica Robins Milanese, soprano
Joseph Adam, organ
Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox, soprano
Melissa Plagemann, mezzo-soprano
Wesley Rogers, tenor
Stephen Tachell, baritone

Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Partita in A Minor, BWV 1013 [Sarabande]

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594)
Sicut cervus

Johann Sebastian Bach
St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 [“Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben”]

Carol Sams (*1945)
An die Musik

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Five Partsongs for Mixed Chorus, Op. 104 [“Letztes Glück”]

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 [“Nimrod”]

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Symphony No. 70 in D Major [Finale: Allegro con brio]

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Schwanengesang, D. 957 [“Ständchen”]

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Lëocadia, Op. 106 [“Les chemins de l’amour”]

Georg Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Israel in Egypt, HWV 54 [“He spake the word”]

Huntley Beyer (*1947)
Turns of a Girl [“Instrument of Choice”]

Johann Sebastian Bach
St. John Passion, BWV 245
[“Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine—Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein”]

—intermission—

Robert Kechley (*1952)
Psalm 100 for Organ, Chorus and Orchestra

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 [Finale]

About the Music

The news of George Shangrow’s death in a car crash on July 31, 2010, came as an incredible shock to all of us who performed with George as members of Orchestra Seattle and the Seattle Chamber Singers, ensembles that he founded and conducted over the past 40 years. Soon we learned what we had always suspected—that George was loved and respected not only by those who knew him personally and worked with him to make music, but by thousands upon thousands who knew him only from a seat at the back of the concert hall, or from listening to his magnificent radio voice as host of “Live by George” for so many years.

As the messages poured in to the OSSCS Web site and Facebook page, one underlying assumption seemed constant: that there would be a concert to celebrate George and what he meant to Seattle’s classical music community. There had to be a concert. And we all knew that if this unthinkable tragedy had happened to anyone else, George would have been the first person to volunteer to “put on a show” (something he had done more than once over the years).

Benaroya Hall graciously donated the use of their facilities and performers jumped at the opportunity to participate. But the question quickly turned to programming: was there any single piece of music that could effectively represent all that George meant to music, all that music meant to George, and all that George meant to all of us? Perhaps George’s greatest gift was the vast range of the music that he loved, performed and shared with audiences. So, in lieu of a single masterpiece, we offer you selections from a variety of works, a necessarily small (but, we hope, representative) sampling of the types of music George brought alive as a conductor, keyboardist, teacher, lecturer, radio host—and friend.

This evening’s concert opens with Jeffrey Cohan playing a selection from Bach’s partita for unaccompanied flute. Jeff performed with George across the region and around the world for four decades as the Cohan-Shangrow Duo, playing everything from the Bach flute sonatas to modern works for flute and piano they had commissioned. “Music lovers will long remember the roaring excitement of George’s Bach performances on the harpsichord,” wrote Melinda Bargreen in a Seattle Times tribute last August. “How often do you get to use ‘roaring excitement’ and ‘Bach sonatas’ in the same sentence? ‘Not often enough,’ George would say.”

Roupen Shakarian, our conductor this evening, first met George at Roosevelt High School, but recalls, “It was in the summer after my first year as an engineering major at the University of Washington that we became more acquainted. Since he was an incoming freshman then, and I was seriously reconsidering my major, we discussed many possible interests of studies as a way to assure ourselves of the inevitable: becoming music majors. As we entered the School of Music in the following year, there began the bonding of many kindred spirits discovering all sorts of music by playing and singing together. A musical family was being born.

“George had already started the budding stages of the Chamber Singers and I soon joined the group. In the same spirit of the Collegiums, we played, sang, and composed pieces for each other, as George took the helm of the performances. With sheer delight, we performed an array of music from the Medieval period, Renaissance, Baroque, Bach cantatas, Handel oratorios, to contemporary works and pieces from composers in the group. George became the conduit for channeling all this passion for music-making.

“I am reminded of this for one reason. Now as we celebrate and reflect on the life of George Shangrow, I have seen, as many others have, that original sparkle, love and passion for music in his being for the past four decades. Simply said, music made George giddy with playful joy and he shared it with all in a wholly big-hearted way.”

The motet Sicut cervus by Palestrina, the Italian master whose works are considered the zenith of Renaissance sacred music, serves as a reminder of the madrigals and other polyphonic vocal works George performed with Chamber Singers in those early days. George dearly loved this particular piece and programmed it many times, most recently for a May 2005 concert at Town Hall.

Soprano Catherine Haight first sang for George in 1983, performing for 14 years as a member of the Chamber Singers, and continuing as a frequent soloist with OSSCS. “From the first rehearsal, I realized that my relationship with music would be forever changed because of him. Never had I experienced such joy in the music-making process.” Tonight she performs a selection from Bach’s monumental St. Matthew Passion, a work that contains moments of overwhelming power, but also intimate arias such as “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” (“Because of love my savior is dying”), which lies at the heart of the work. Accompanied only by flute and two English horns, the soloist is abandoned by the strings and basso continuo, just as Jesus was by his friends as he died for the sake of lost humanity. George programmed the Bach passions regularly, often on (or just preceding) Good Friday; his last performance of the St. Matthew Passion took place on Palm Sunday 2007.

In an age of specialists, George remained a musical omnivore who would program world premieres on concerts otherwise filled with Bach cantatas and a Handel concerto grosso. He championed music of Northwest composers, and three in particular: Carol “Kia” Sams, Huntley Beyer and Robert Kechley, a trio from whom he commissioned countless works. For a February 2004 event at Town Hall, dubbed “Shangrowmania,” which celebrated George’s contributions to the community, Kia composed an a cappella setting of the poem An die Musik, best known as the text of an 1817 song by Franz Schubert. George later conducted the work with the Chamber Singers in May 2005.

“I am profoundly moved by the poem,” writes Kia, “which speaks of gratitude for music, opening the heart to heaven, and giving joy in so many ‘leaden hours.’ I thought it touching that Schubert set this poem, grateful for what music had done for him, especially in light of the tragic circumstances of his life. And that George loved the poem also, and I felt it explained something of the power music has that we are so grateful to music in spite of hardship and loss. That said, I tried to put some of my gratitude for a long and fruitful relationship with George in the piece: It is personal, and it is telling, that I used some of George’s favorite chords, especially the climactic chord, which was his absolute favorite (major-major-7th chord, with the 7th in the bass). I wanted him to hear the love I put into it. I hope he still hears it, as hearing with love is some of the best hearing there is.”

Brahms was a favorite composer of George’s (one of many). He conducted all of the symphonies and concertos, and of course presented the German Requiem frequently, conducting it most recently last February at St. Mark’s Cathedral in a benefit performance for victims of the Haiti earthquake. George also championed the Op. 104 Partsongs, programming them often (most recently in November 2007).

In 1979, a decade after the first concert of the Seattle Chamber Singers, many of the instrumentalists who regularly accompanied the group persuaded George to start an orchestra, at first dubbed the “Broadway Symphony” (after the Broadway Performance Hall) and now known as Orchestra Seattle. George began exploring the orchestral repertoire, bringing fresh perspective to “warhorses” that many of the musicians had played repeatedly but which George was performing for the first time. One such work was Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which George conducted at Meany Hall in March 2006 (on a typically eclectic program that also included an obscure concerto by Arthur Benjamin and a selection of opera arias). Elgar dedicated each of the movements to one of his friends, identifying them by initials or cryptic nicknames. (George also delighted in assigning nicknames to many of his dear friends.) The emotional highlight of the work is “Nimrod,” a variation for Elgar’s close friend Augustus Jaeger: in German, Jäger means “hunter” and the Old Testament referred to Noah’s grandson, Nimrod, as “a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

Another favorite composer of George’s was Haydn, and OSSCS of course performed his two great oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, many times. But George also relished exploring Haydn’s 100-plus symphonies, especially the lesser-known ones, delighting in their inherent humor. One such example is the final movement from the Symphony No. 70, which George conducted at Meany Hall in November 2003. In under three minutes, Haydn manages to be both amusing (including some surprises worthy of the composer’s later Surprise Symphony) and serious (flexing his compositional muscles with a D-minor fugue—and not just any fugue, but a triple fugue in contrapunto doppio, or three simultaneous two-part fugues).

Vocalists adored George’s skills as an accompanist and vocal coach. This evening, two singers who performed as soloists and in recital with George with great frequency each share a selection for voice and piano. Brian Box has chosen Schubert’s Ständchen (from a posthumously published collection known as Schwanengesang, or “Swan Song”), while Kathryn Weld offers Les chemins de l’amour, a valse chantée from Poulenc’s incidental music for Léocadia. Brian and Katie are both accompanied by pianist Mark Salman, a frequent collaborator with George and Orchestra Seattle over the past dozen years in concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Poulenc, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky.

Perhaps no composer is more closely linked with George than Handel: the annual OSSCS presentations of Messiah remain legendary. But George also brought to Seattle rare performances (sometimes local premieres) of oratorios such as Saul, Jephtha, Theodora and Hercules. George delighted in Handel’s tone-painting, never more so than when conducting Israel in Egypt, which tells the story of the 10 plagues with which God afflicted the people of Egypt. Among the frogs and hailstones comes the brief chorus heard this evening, which vividly depicts the infestation of Egypt by flies (buzzing and swarming in the strings), lice and crop-devouring locusts. Concertgoers still recall the time when George came out to conduct this movement as an encore—wielding a flyswatter in place of a baton.

Composer Huntley Beyer first met George in 1969 in the classroom of harpsichordist Sylvia Kind at the University of Washington and later played oboe in Orchestra Seattle for 15 years. George premiered many of his works, including Songs of Illumination, which debuted in May 2007 with Jessica Robins Milanese as soloist. Jessica and Huntley so admired each other’s work that Huntley composed a song cycle, The Turns of a Girl, for her. George conducted the world premiere at his last OSSCS concert on June 6, 2010.

The final chorus from Bach’s St. John Passion, a majestic “funeral procession/lullaby,” wishes that Jesus might “rest well.” There follows one last chorale, which expresses the longing of the worshipper to experience, after death, the Easter joy of seeing and eternally praising Jesus.

Composer Robert Kechley grew up with George, originally singing in the Chamber Singers and playing oboe and recorder, then performing as harpsichordist with OSSCS. George premiered dozens of Bob’s compositions, from symphonies and concertos to choral works and chamber music. When Bob set the text of Psalm 100 for organ and chorus, George commissioned a new version that included orchestra for an October 2000 concert at Benaroya Hall. Perhaps more importantly, George gave the piece a second performance (in June 2008), as he had done with Bob’s Symphony No. 2, Beyer’s St. Mark Passion and Sams’ oratorio The Earthmakers.

George conducted all of the Beethoven symphonies over the past 30 years, but none more often than the Ninth, perfectly suited to the unique choral-orchestral organization he built from scratch. To close this concert, we offer Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as reminder of the joyfulness that George Shangrow brought to all of the music he made with us—and for us—for more than 40 years.