{"id":2826,"date":"2023-11-23T07:32:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T12:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2023-11-23T07:32:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T12:32:54","slug":"yet-again-the-south-dakota-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/11\/yet-again-the-south-dakota-symphony.html","title":{"rendered":"Yet Again — The South Dakota Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As readers of this blog now know by heart, I regard the South Dakota Symphony as a national exempla<\/a>r. I\u2019ve written about their Lakota Music Project, which connects the orchestra to Indian reservations throughout the state. I\u2019ve extolled their ingeniously contextualized performances of Silvestre Revueltas\u2019s Redes<\/em>, of Shostakovich\u2019s Leningrad<\/em> Symphony<\/a><\/strong>, and \u2013 most recently \u2013 of Lou Harrison\u2019s Piano Concerto. And I\u2019ve reported Alex Ross\u2019s enthusiasm for the South Dakota Symphony in The New Yorker<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now my friend Doug McLennan, founder\/editor of the invaluable ArtsJournal, has chimed in with his own report<\/a><\/strong> on the Harrison concerto last October. Doug begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat the piece hasn\u2019t found a wider following is a shame. Horowitz considers it the best American piano concerto<\/a>, and I might agree. From its grand bombastic opening and angular melodies, reflective pools and undulating rhythms, it is both original and evocatively American.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doug continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe South\u00a0Dakota players are good musicians, but what is extraordinary about them is the way they listen to one another, build on one another\u2019s phrases and the willingness of [Music Director David] Gier to give them room to do it. Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli was the soloist, a specialist in American music. He tore into the propulsive second movement, using percussion as counterpoint he could play with like a cat with a toy. The longer, angular open-toned melodies he gave room to breathe \u2013 they evoke for me the great Western expanses and mountains \u2013 and made the gamelan-inflected oscillations of the score supple rather than strict. In every way, this was an idiomatic performance that let it find its own language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harrison concerto was flanked by two examples of musical Orientalism \u2013 Ravel\u2019s The<\/em> Princess of the Pagodas<\/em> and Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s Scheherazade<\/em>. These sublime touristic visitations were juxtaposed with Harrison\u2019s informed fusion of Eastern and Western idioms. Doug writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo make the connections and context clear, the program began with a stage conversation between Gier and Horowitz and a short video introducing Harrison. And it wasn\u2019t just informational \u2013 context isn\u2019t just about more information, it\u2019s about finding ways to locate what you\u2019re hearing in a set of experiences that help give them meaning. So: an introduction to gamelan and how it can sound and is traditionally used.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis orchestra doesn\u2019t sound like others. Players come from around the Midwest, as far away as Minneapolis and Chicago, and Gier says they keep returning because they like the camaraderie and the freedom they have there. That players seem to listen differently he attributes in part to their work with musicians from the Lakota Indian nation in the western part of the state. . . . The encounters have taught Symphony musicians to listen to one another differently, and this has been infused into the larger group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short: these are concerts that demand a wider audience and an influential role. I next visit South Dakota for Mahler\u2019s Third Symphony this coming April. I\u2019ll spend more than a week in South Dakota in February-March 2025 for \u201cNew World Encounters,\u201d a festival exploring the American impact on the arts abroad. Our soloist will be Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (who will explore \u201cRavel and jazz\u201d). Former US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle, an inspired practitioner of cultural exchange, will also take part. We will partner with local universities. The result will be a grand cross-disciplinary adventure \u2013 an experimental showcase —  funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities \u201cMusic Unwound<\/strong>\u201d<\/a> initiative. I can hardly wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As readers of this blog now know by heart, I regard the South Dakota Symphony as a national exemplar. I\u2019ve written about their Lakota Music Project, which connects the orchestra to Indian reservations throughout the state. I\u2019ve extolled their ingeniously contextualized performances of Silvestre Revueltas\u2019s Redes, of Shostakovich\u2019s Leningrad Symphony, and \u2013 most recently \u2013 of Lou Harrison\u2019s Piano Concerto. […]<\/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-2826","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-JA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","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=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2830,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/2830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}