Mela DaileyChattanooga Symphony & Opera conductor Kayoko Dan has been thinking about the introduction to this year’s Masterworks concert series for more than a year.
Dan says the seeds of the program for the season debut were planted in 2014 during a conversation with soprano Mela Dailey. Dailey – who sang Mozart’s Requiem with the CSO in 2013 – was discussing her involvement in a performance of “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” a 1947 composition by Samuel Barber that pairs with a piece of prose written by famed Tennessee author James Agee.
The Barber work is one of Dan’s self-described favorites, and the synchronicity between the composition’s title and the timing of the CSO’s season premiere tonight, Sept. 17, were too enticing to ignore, she says.
“That was kind of planted in my head,” Dan says. “It’s now 2015 in Chattanooga and it’s summer, so I thought it would be fun to open with that piece.”
Although the Barber piece is her favorite of the evening, tonight’s program will consist of four compositions and is named for the concluding selection, “The Pines of Rome,” by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi.
The four-movement work – the second in Respighi’s Roman Trilogy – is described as “a symphonic poem paying homage to the long-standing pine trees throughout the city of Rome.” Dan says “Pines” is a bombastic composition that will include theater-rattling contributions from the Tivoli’s organ and an offstage brass section set up to produce the symphonic equivalent of surround sound.
“It’s just a really huge piece,” Dan says. “Respighi is a brilliant composer; he’s really good at orchestrating to just exactly the right character and color of each movement. Capturing that and doing justice to what he wrote will be the challenge.”
Taken as a whole, the program – which also will include Antonin Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” and the CSO debut of Christopher Theofanidis’ “Rainbow Body” – is intended to evoke a sense of the natural splendor that Chattanooga has in such abundance, Dan says.
“I was thinking about what would go well with Barber,” she says. “The city is so beautiful I thought we could put together an outdoor-themed concert.”
As added incentive to those who find classical music imposing, the concert features works that are digestible and brief – 15 minutes or less – Dan says.
“They’re not massive, daunting, hourlong symphonies,” she says. “In that respect, it’s a very friendly concert for people who may not come to Masterworks that often.”
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205.
If you go
What: Chattanooga Symphony & Opera’s Masterworks Series concert “Pines of Rome”
When: 7:30 p.m. today, Sept. 17
Where: Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St.
Admission: $21-$83; season passes for Masterworks concerts $210-$315
Phone: 423-267-8583
Website: chattanoogasymphony.org/event/pines-of-rome/
Tonight’s program
Antonin Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” (1891)
Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” (1947)
Christopher Theofanidis’ “Rainbow Body” (2000)
Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” (1924)
Masterworks to come
Oct. 22: Brahms’ “Requiem”
Nov. 19: Tchaikovsky’s Piano (Concerto) No. 1
Jan. 21: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms
Feb. 18: Carnival of the Animals
March 17: Pulcinella
April 28: “Scheherazade”