{"id":2544,"date":"2023-04-24T21:43:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T01:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2023-04-24T21:43:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T01:43:40","slug":"shostakovich-in-south-dakota-on-npr-a-new-template-for-orchestras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/04\/shostakovich-in-south-dakota-on-npr-a-new-template-for-orchestras.html","title":{"rendered":"“Shostakovich in South Dakota” on NPR — A New Template for Orchestras"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My\u00a0NPR \u201cMore than Music<\/a><\/strong>\u201d program \u201cShostakovich in South Dakota\u201d can now be accessed here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I document the impact of a remarkable contextualized performance of Shostakovich\u2019s Leningrad<\/em> Symphony by Delta David Gier and his singular South Dakota<\/a> Symphony<\/strong> last February \u2013 and ponder its significance for the future of embattled American orchestras striving to retain pertinence today. Shostakovich\u2019s symphony was composed during the Nazis\u2019 strangling 872-day siege of Leningrad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few excerpts from the show: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor Mark Bertrand, the pastor of Sioux Falls\u2019 Grace Presbyterian Church, Shostakovich\u2019s Leningrad<\/em> Symphony evoked the resilience of Ukrainian resistance to Russia\u2019s invading army in 2023. Bertrand also found himself thinking about the role of culture in a nation\u2019s life. \u2018It\u2019s striking that as the symphony was being composed, Shostakovich was updating people in real time about his progress. They were looking forward to this happening. And it can\u2019t be the case that this besieged population was just seeking some entertainment to get their thoughts off their everyday reality. I tried to imagine us today feeling a similar kind of anticipation for an artistic statement. We don\u2019t value things the way they did. It really gets you thinking about how different their values must have been<\/strong>.\u2019 . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs Shostakovich\u2019s symphony began its slow, inexorable ascent toward a final climax, Bertrand found himself thinking about a German soldier whose words were quoted earlier in the evening. The Russians not only broadcast the Leningrad<\/em> Symphony throughout the Soviet Union. They managed to broadcast it via loudspeakers to the Nazi troops blockading Leningrad. After the war, a German soldier testified: \u2018<\/strong>It had a slow but powerful effect on us. The realization began to dawn that we would never take Leningrad<\/strong>. We began to see that there was something stronger than starvation, fear and weather \u2013 the will to remain human.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another participant in the NPR program is the New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s Alex Ross, who says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTh<\/strong>ere\u2019s just a tremendous amount of caution, a tremendous amount of groupthink, in the orchestra world<\/strong>. So to see an orchestra really out on its own, forging its own identity, and bringing its audience along with it is just extremely impressive \u2013 even more impressive than I anticipated. . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a music director to carry off an ambitious project, you have to be there. You have to be on the scene, persuading people, interacting with them, listening to their ideas. Not just communicating your own. Building a sense of cooperation. You cannot do that as effectively if you\u2019re flying in for two or three weeks, and another couple of weeks in the winter, and another two weeks in the spring. I find it a bit outrageous that music directors are so highly paid<\/strong> to begin with for one job \u2013 and then you find them holding a second or even a third position with exorbitant salaries in those places as well. This, of all things, is something the orchestra world should really be thinking about: drastically revising our idea of who a music director is, what their job entails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Dakota Symphony\u2019s performance of the Leningrad<\/em> Symphony was elaborately partnered by South Dakota State University. Reflecting on dropping enrollments in the Humanities,<\/strong> David Reynold\u2019s, director SDSU\u2019s the School of Performing Arts, says: \u201cI realize that in some high school curricula today the story of World War II may be only a week. I think that finding a way to use the performing arts to bring this kind of story to life is a wonderful opportunity to touch students who are growing up with social media and other non-traditional resources. Students in our Music Appreciation classes \u2013 those are the folks that one of these days will be bank presidents, school board presidents, and will decide the role of the arts in public and private schools. It\u2019s very important for them to have experiences just like this one \u2013 Shostakovich and the siege of Leningrad. To get them thinking that life would be incomplete without the arts being a part of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also explore the South Dakota Symphony\u2019s signature Lakota Music Project<\/strong>,<\/a> which connects SDSO to Indian reservations throughout the state, and about which SDSO principal second violinist Magda Modzelewska says: \u201cIn Indian culture we\u2019ve found such peace and good will. It\u2019s truly remarkable how similar our musical goals are. We get to share something sublime.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story of an orchestra that does just about everything different seems to me so important to the future wellbeing of the American arts that I\u2019m generating a 6,000-word \u201cmanifesto,\u201d scheduled for future publication by The American Scholar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A listening guide to the 50-minute broadcast follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART ONE: The Leningrad Symphony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:15 — About the symphony and the siege<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5:45 — Mark Bertrand on experiencing the Leningrad Symphony <\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:10 — Magda Modzelewska on performing Shostakovich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART TWO: The Lakota Music Project<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:04 — “Wind on Clear Lake” by Jeffrey Paul<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:20 — Delta David Gier on the history of the Lakota Music Project<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20:12 — Lakota flutist Bryan Akipa<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23:10 — The Composition Academies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25:45 — Arthur Farwell and “Pawnee Horses”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27:10 — Farwell’s “Hako” Quartet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART THREE: The SDSO as a Model<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:00 — The bedroom scene from Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

34:00 — The Shostakovich Eighth Quartet on campus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

37:00 — David Reynolds of South Dakota State University on collaborating with SDSO<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39:15 — Alex Ross on the SDSO and the future of orchestras- <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My\u00a0NPR \u201cMore than Music\u201d program \u201cShostakovich in South Dakota\u201d can now be accessed here.\u00a0  I document the impact of a remarkable contextualized performance of Shostakovich\u2019s Leningrad Symphony by Delta David Gier and his singular South Dakota Symphony last February \u2013 and ponder its significance for the future of embattled American orchestras striving to retain pertinence today. Shostakovich\u2019s symphony was […]<\/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-2544","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-F2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544","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=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2555,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions\/2555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}