News from The Steven R. Gerber Trust
July 2019 Volume 2, Number 2
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Welcome to
News from the Steven R. Gerber Trust
, our periodic update of news about performances and other activities supported by the Trust created in Gerber's name.
The Steven R. Gerber Trust is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the music of Steven Gerber through the support and creation of projects, programs, and initiatives which elevate exposure to, increase interest in, and highlight aspects of, the composer's work.
If you have any questions or need more information about the Steven R. Gerber Trust, please feel free to contact Jeffrey James at
[email protected]
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Gerber Trust Partners With
English Symphony Orchestra
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The Steven R. Gerber Trust has begun a 2-year performance/recording relationship with the
English Symphony Orchestra
, wherein the Trust will support ESO's 21st Century Symphony Project, which involves commissioning, premiering and recording nine new symphonies by different composers, as well as support for Gerber's music in the U.K. through performances and recordings. The Gerber Trust recently asked ESO Artistic Director and Principal Conductor
Kenneth Woods
to respond to the following questions:
Tell me about the English Symphony Orchestra.
The ESO was founded as the English String Orchestra in 1980 by a conductor named William Boughton. The core of the original group was made up largely of members of the recently-disbanded BBC Midlands Light Music Orchestra. Within a year or two, the orchestra had already expanded to symphonic repertoire, hence the change of name, although we continue to perform and record as both English String Orchestra and English Symphony Orchestra.
William was succeeded by the legendary British conductor Vernon 'Tod' Handley. Tod's health was poor for most of his two-year tenure with the orchestra prior to his death 2008, but his masterful interpretations of some of the greatest pieces of English music remain a treasured part of the ESO legacy and he is very much missed.
After Tod's passing the orchestra experimented with not having a conductor several years, but after five years of this, they saw the need for new leadership and this is when I joined them.
I saw on arrival that there was still a lot to admire in William's original concept of the orchestra. To that, we've added a few new things. First, I'm probably more deeply obsessed with the music of Central Europe and Russia than William or Tod, so the Austro-German canon and the 20th C works that grew out of it is a bigger part of our repertoire than in years past. Working in strategic partnership with educational groups, festivals and community groups. is more important now than in the past. And, finally, although both Tod and William were deeply committed to new music, the place of new work in our programmes and recording plans has expanded a great deal.
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Tell me about the 2-year performance/recording project you've undertaken with The Gerber Trust. Are there any plans for presentations with the ESO Youth project?
There are two main threads to our project. First, the Gerber Trust is supporting our
21st Century Symphony Project
, which involves commissioning, premiering and recording nine new symphonies by different composers. Just this week, we finished the first Gerber Trust-supported work in that project, Matthew Taylor's
Fifth Symphony
(reviewed
here
), which we've also recorded for Nimbus. Matthew has been at the forefront of British symphonic music since he wrote his
Symphonia Brevis
at the age of 21 in the 1980's, and his Fifth is a powerful and personal work, culminating in a huge, cathartic Adagio written in memory of his mother. Next year, we premiere the
First Symphony
by James Francis Brown in partnership with the Three Choirs Festival, the oldest music festival in the UK. James' work is distinctly Beethovenian in spirit, in celebration of LvB's 250th birthday, and will be coupled with Beethoven's 7th on the premiere.
The other side of the project is support for Gerber's music in the UK through performances and recordings. This Spring we had three performances of
Homage to Dvorak
as a way of getting things started, but we have big ambitions for the months and years ahead, including recording some of the major works that have still not been made available on CD.
Has the organization had a history of presenting music by American composers?
William was an aficionado of American music and it did play a role in his programming.
As an American conductor working here, I have always been careful to find a healthy balance of American music in my programmes in the UK. It's all too easy to end up only conducting Copland, Bernstein and Gershwin as an American. Those are three composers I revere, but we've also been careful to programme Ives, Piston, William Grant Still and other lesser-know figures. Last year, we co-commissioned a fantastic new work by the young American composer Jesse Jones with St John's Smith Square ("
Smith Square Dances
"). This is something we'd like to do more of.
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What drew you to the music of Steve Gerber?
Gerber had an absolute mastery of his craft and a great instinct for sonority. Everything of his really 'sounds.' But more than that, his music has a refreshing absence of point-making. There's nothing in it which seeks to attract attention to individual details - no pointless effects, no technical detours, no wastefully difficult writing. Everything in the music is there for the benefit of the piece, and the sense of what the piece is trying to express is 100% clear.
You recently presented the UK Premiere of Gerber's
Homage to Dvorak
as the first performance of this project. Why did you choose this piece to begin the project?
It was a bit of a happy accident that we were doing a mini tour of an all-Dvorak programme in January and a Czech-themed programme (including the London premiere of a new edition of the Dvorak
String Serenade
) in the spring. I thought it could work as a beautiful encore or amuse bouche, and it did. The familiarity of the material and the accessibility of the language offers an 'in' for general listeners, but for more critical ears, it has real emotional heft and fascinating craftsmanship. The orchestra loved playing it.
What other pieces are you planning to present in concert?
I'm sure we will continue to play the
Spirituals
and the other string orchestra works. We'll also be working to include the chamber music in smaller venues whenever we can. The piece we're working hardest on is the
Second Symphony
, which is the most significant in Gerber's catalogue which still needs recording. It's for large forces, so we're still putting together the rest of the funding for it, but I'm confident we'll find a way to do it. Hopefully all of this will end up on CD with Nimbus in 2020 or 2021.
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Hear the 1st
movement of Gerber's
Symphony No. 1
, performed by the
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Sanderling, conductor,
below.
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If you have any questions or need more information about the Steven R. Gerber Trust, please feel free to contact Jeffrey James at
[email protected]
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