{"id":2460,"date":"2023-02-22T15:31:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T20:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2023-02-22T15:31:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T20:31:15","slug":"shostakovich-in-south-dakota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/02\/shostakovich-in-south-dakota.html","title":{"rendered":"Shostakovich in South Dakota"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019m in Sioux Falls, where the\u00a0South Dakota Symphony<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 to my knowledge, the most genuinely innovative American orchestra \u2013 is performing Shostakovich\u2019s Seventh Symphony Saturday night at 7:30 pm Central Time. A 30-minute preamble (which I\u2019ve scripted) explores the extraordinary context of this work. It\u2019s all being livestreamed via\u00a0http:\/\/www.sd.net<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sdsymphony<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performance links to two weeks of activity at South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota \u2013 an educational experiment I cannot imagine implementing anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Symphonies are Tombstones,\u201d the \u201cdramatic interlude with music\u201d that begins the concert, starts with some really lascivious music from Shostakovich\u2019s opera Lady Macbeth<\/em> \u2013 and the notorious Pravda<\/em> editorial that resulted. Delta David Gier \u2013 the orchestra\u2019s music director since 2004, and a Sioux Falls resident since 2005 \u2013 also samples the ending of Shostakovich\u2019s Fifth Symphony in the course of exploring the ways in which this singular composer bears witness to history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Composed during the terrible siege of Leningrad, Shostakovich\u2019s Seventh rallied a nation. It was broadcast throughout the Soviet Union \u2013 and also to the front. A German soldier later testified: \u201cIt had a slow but powerful effect on us. The realization began to dawn that we would never take Leningrad. We began to see that there was something stronger than starvation, fear and weather \u2013 the will to remain human.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will be turning the entire \u201cShostakovich in South Dakota\u201d exercise into my next NPR \u201cMore<\/strong>\u00a0than Music<\/strong>\u201d<\/a> documentary, with commentary by the participating students and musicians \u2013 including members of the Dakota String Quartet, which performs Shostakovich\u2019s autobiographical Eighth String Quartet on both campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This is the same Dakota String Quartet, comprising SDSO principal players, that made the world premiere recording of\u00a0Arthur Farwell\u2019s\u00a0Hako<\/em>\u00a0Quarte<\/a>t<\/strong>, a landmark achievement in the Indianists movement Dvorak inspired and Farwell spearheaded; and it\u2019s not kitsch.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How I wish other orchestras could link to universities in this fashion, or so creatively strategize to maximize the impact of music in live performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Next season, Gier and Emanuele Arciuli perform Lou Harrison\u2019s Piano Concerto, a work frequently\u00a0extolled in this space<\/a><\/strong>. The same program will incorporate a gamelan demonstration, exploring Harrison\u2019s ingenious techniques of cultural fusion.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read a related blog on the South Dakota Symphony, click\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read Alex Ross on the South Dakota Symphony in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>, click\u00a0here<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m in Sioux Falls, where the\u00a0South Dakota Symphony\u00a0\u2013 to my knowledge, the most genuinely innovative American orchestra \u2013 is performing Shostakovich\u2019s Seventh Symphony Saturday night at 7:30 pm Central Time. A 30-minute preamble (which I\u2019ve scripted) explores the extraordinary context of this work. It\u2019s all being livestreamed via\u00a0http:\/\/www.sd.net\u00a0or\u00a0http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sdsymphony The performance links to two weeks of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-DG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2465,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}