Monday, January 27, 2014 Caravan News 3903

Symphony in the Groove Concert

Tracy Silverman electric viollin with the Stockton Symphony

Concert program:

BUNCH: Embrace, Concerto for Electric Violin

ROSSINI: William Tell Overture (finale)

BACH: “Little” Fugue in G minor

FALLA: The Miller’s Dance (Farruca) and Final Dance (Jota) from El sombrero de tres picos

Tracy Silverman performs with the full Stockton Symphony!

Concert location:
Atherton Auditorium
San Joaquin Delta College

Co-sponsored by San Joaquin Delta College

This concert is made possible in part by a grant from the Stockton Arts Commission.

Here’s what Tracy Silverman had to say about the new electric violin concerto, “Embrace,” which was co-commissioned by the Stockton Symphony:

‘I’m proud to be premiering “Embrace”, the new electric violin concerto by Kenji Bunch on April 6 with the Champlain Philharmonic Orchestra in Vermont. It was co-comissioned by 10 orchestras through an organization called the Orchestra Engagement Lab whose mission is to strengthen orchestras’ connections within their communities. The hope is that each commissioning orchestra will use this piece to construct a broader work of some kind involving members of the local communities with the theme “My Family”. The piece coalesces on stage like a flash mob with orchestra members entering one by one from the audience and from various locations in the hall. I will be bringing this project to kids in schools, people in community centers, prisons, and anyone else who wants to weigh in on their thoughts about family, and then incorporate their words and artwork into the performance of the concerto, either within it, or possibly surrounding it. It’s all a giant experiment. It’s a joyful, beautiful work with plenty of room for me to improvise and rock out.’

Kenji Bunch’s statement about Embrace, concerto for electric violin and orchestra:

“When I was approached by the Orchestra Engagement Lab to write a new concerto to help launch their truly groundbreaking mission of re-imagining the relationship an orchestra can have with its community, I knew I was in for a challenge. In addition, the soloist I was presented with for the project was legendary electric violin pioneer Tracy Silverman, who has singlehandedly redefined our notion of what a string player is, and is capable of. Lastly, The OEL conceived of an over-arching theme for this project centered around the universal but very flexible notion of “family.” Simply put, it no longer seemed adequate for me to write a traditional three-movement work for soloist and orchestra that dutifully adheres to the expectations both the musicians and the listeners would generally have for such a work. Rather, I also needed to suggest another possible definition for what a concerto could be, and for how the musicians and audience alike could experience the performance.

All of this has led me to Embrace: Concerto for electric violin and orchestra, an interactive performance work conceived and written in the spirit of what I consider the most powerful new medium of orchestral performing of the 21st century: the orchestral “flash mob.”

In this work, which begins with the solo violin alone on stage, music gradually emerges from offstage, from the back of the hall, and from the audience itself, literally surrounding and embracing the audience in an inclusive celebration of the type of group performance only an orchestral “family” would be able to achieve. The traditional musical tools I usually work with of Western form and functional harmony are, in this one-movement work, set aside in favor of hypnotic rhythmic drives, static but gradually building harmonies, and improvisation over repeated call and response patterns that draw influence from elements of Afrobeat, Indian music, and gospel.”

Tracy Silverman, electric violin.