NEC Chamber Orchestra: Strauss, Mozart, & Walton

NEC: Jordan Hall | Directions

290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA
United States

The NEC Chamber Orchestra was created to provide the students with an opportunity to apply the principals of chamber music in a small orchestral setting.  The participants are chosen by audition at the beginning of the academic year and remain together throughout. As the ensemble rehearses and performs without a conductor, leadership responsibilities are rotated for every work performed. This affords the students an opportunity to develop communication skills, take responsibility for musical decisions and broaden their aural and score reading capabilities. Participation in the program also allows them to explore a wide range of the incredibly rich chamber orchestra literature.


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Ensembles
  • NEC Chamber Orchestra
Conductors
Artists

  1. Richard Strauss | Sextet for Strings from "Capriccio", op. 85

     

    Program note

    Richard Strauss’s final opera, Capriccio, was composed in 1942. The opera, described by Strauss as “a treatise on dramaturgy” poses the question: “which is more important: words or music?” Set in an 18th century French chateau, the opera opens with six musicians on stage premiering a sextet by the composer Flamand for the Countess Madeleine. As a standalone sextet, it is one of the very few works of chamber music that Strauss composed. Before Capriccio premiered, Strauss presented a private performance of the sextet for the governor of Vienna who had offered to protect Strauss’ family from persecution by the Nazis. Musically, the opera and its elegant introduction represent a look back at more refined times.

  2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Concerto for Violin No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 207

    Allegro moderato
    Adagio
    Presto

     

    Program note

    At the age of 13, the young Mozart was appointed concertmaster of the Salzburg Court Orchestra. As concertmaster, he composed a total of five violin concertos, the first when he was 17, and the rest two years later. He wrote these concertos for himself to perform, but other violinists, those skilled enough, began playing them, too. Elegant and tuneful, witty and lyrical, Violin Concerto No.1 embodies all the qualities that we recognize as Mozartian and reflect the stylistic influences of his many travels.

    Yiliang Jiang

    A native of Wuxi, China, violinist Yiliang Jiang is currently pursuing his GD with Prof. Donald Weilerstein at New England Conservatory. Yiliang won Fourth Place in the 55th Premio Paganini International Violin Competition, and won the top prize of the Dorothy Delay Fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival. In May 2013, Yiliang won Second Place in the Adults Group of the Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition. Since 2011, Yiliang has collaborated with the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, among others. 

     
    Artists
    • Yiliang Jiang '23 GD, violin - Winner, NEC Chamber Orchestra Concerto Competition

  3. William Walton | Sonata for String Orchestra (1971)

    Allegro
    Presto
    Lento
    Allegro molto

     

    Program note

    In 1971, Neville Marriner asked William Walton to compose a work for string orchestra for his Academy of Saint Martins in the Fields. Walton obliged by arranging his earlier A minor string quartet, composed in 1945, for the Academy’s strings. Walton had spent most of the World War II years composing film scores. After the Violin Concerto of 1939, the new string quartet represented a return to composing concert music. Walton’s arrangement serves to amplify this wonderful score and, on occasion, refers back to the intimacy of the string quartet. Malcolm Arnold assisted Walton in the arrangement of the final movement.

  4.  

    Personnel

    Violin
    Joshua Brown ‡‡  
    Tiffany Chang ‡  
    Tong Chen **
    Youngji Choi §
    Boxianzi Vivian Ling   
    Nikki Naghavi
    Julian Rhee
    Jaewon Wee *
    Rachel Yi §§

    Viola
    Chiau-Rung Chen ‡ 
    Cara Pogossian §
    Santiago Vazquez-Loredo *^   
    Zhanbo Zheng

    Cello
    Bennet Huang *^
    Claire Deokyong Kim §
    Soobin Kong ‡ 

    Bass
    Diego Martinez

    Oboe
    Ryoei Leo Kawai
    Corinne Foley

    French horn
    Paolo Rosselli
    Helen Wargelin


    Principal players

    § Strauss
    ‡Mozart
    * Walton soloist
    ^ Walton

    Double symbol for principal 2nd violin


     

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