At Lakeland Baptist Church, 397 South Stemmons, Lewisville TX 75067 (Directions)

Adult $25, Senior (60+) $20, student $10, Special Family Rate $60 (regardless of family size), Special UNT student rate $5

“The Creation of the World”

Composer: Darius Milhaud

Choreography: Kelly Lannin

Dancers: LakeCities Ballet Theatre

Cast:

Man: Steven Loch

Woman: Staci Cornell

Creatures, Plants, and Birds:

Karlee Kautz, Brandy Menninga, Brianna Cullum

The Blues: Nicole Collins, Sarah Eggleston,

Taylor Kopp, Hope Miller,

Chaos: Morgan Edgerton, Danielle Manis,

Lauren Schafer, Nicole Votolato

Canadian pianist Janice Fehlauer began her musical studies in Chilliwack, British Columbia. After receiving an Associate Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in both piano and violin, she went on to complete a B.Mus at the University of British Columbia, where she studied with Jane Coop and Rena Sharon.

Throughout her training, Janice has been invited to participate in masterclasses with eminent musicians such as Anton Kuerti (Banff Institute), Vadim Monastyrsky (Rubin Academy, Jerusalem), Rudolf Jansen (Franz-Schubert-Institut), Ben Heppner, Malcolm Martineau and Charles Castleman (Eastman).

In 2006 Janice won the UNT Concerto Competition, and appeared as a soloist with the UNT Symphony Orchestra playing the Bartok Concerto No. 2.

In addition to her solo performances, Janice is a dedicated collaborative artist, and has performed extensively with members of Vancouver Opera, Vancouver Song Circle, and Brio String Quartet. She worked as a collaborative piano assistant at UBC, and was recently appointed rehearsal pianist for the UNT Opera Theatre.

Her performances have been broadcast and recorded live on Rogers 10, Bravo!TV and NowTV. In 2004-2005 Janice performed regularly for the UBC Learning Exchange, a group of artists who sought innovative and non-traditional ways of presenting classical music to the underprivileged in Vancouver's downtown eastside.

Janice has maintained a private teaching studio since 1996, and was appointed to the faculty of the Chilliwack Academy of Music in 2000. She is currently a graduate piano student at the University of North Texas, where she studies with Dr.Pamela Mia Paul.

Janice just won the Nina Widemann International Piano Competition beating competitors from New York’s prestigious Juilliard School based in Lincoln Center. As a result she will be doing recitals in Mississippi, appearances with Meridian Symphony, Northwest Florida Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, and recitals at the highly prestigious Myra Hess recital series in Chicago (broadcast by WFMT) and the equally venerable recital series at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.

Email from Dr. Pamela Mia Paul Dec4, 2007

'Rhapsody in Blue'
"I find it to be one of the most exhilarating and irresistible pieces written for piano and orchestra. Gershwin himself said that "I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness".

"When I hear this piece, I hear the movement, the bustling and the excitement of masses of people. The jazz-inflected solos played by the piano and by various instruments of the orchestra, such as the famous opening wail on a 'drunken' clarinet, remind me of the spontaneity and individuality of each musician, and yet all the individual elements come together in a way that always leaves me feeling joyous and optimistic.

"The original orchestration of this piece feels like a jazz combo to me, with emphasis on the brass and woodwind sounds. This original version, which was unrecorded until 1976, presents a fresh angle on the piece for listeners who are accustomed to the later, more symphonic version."

Le Boeuf sur Le Toit (The Ox on the Roof)

Darius Milhaud

During his service with the French diplomatic delegation in Rio de Janeiro during World War I, Milhaud was greatly impressed with the Brazilian folk dance music which he heard. In 1919 he wrote a rondo, based upon Brazilian folk songs, which was intended as accompaniment for a film starring Charlie Chaplin.

The cinema plan never worked out, but in time it was suggested that it be used for a ballet. The ballet is a burlesque at the expense of the American Prohibition in the twenties, and the action is a wild exaggeration. The music is a combination of popular Brazilian melodies, including the jaunty song, Le Boeuf sur Le Toit, which recurs between the dance tunes. These melodies include a variety of rhythms – tangos, maxixes, sambas, and the Portuguese fado.

Le Creation du Monde (The Creation of the World)

Darius Milhaud

On a trip to the United States in 1922 Milhaud heard “authentic” jazz for the first time. He made repeated visits to Harlem and was greatly impressed with the sonorities, rhythm, and vitality of the American jazz bands. The creative reflections of these visits was Milhaud’s ballet Le Creation du Monde.

Later Milhaud extracted an orchestral suite from the original composition and this is the music being performed this evening. The score contains a fugue on a jazz theme, some blues and other form types that are derivative from Afro-American folklore.

George Gershwin

At the invitation of the bandleader Paul Whiteman, Gershwin wrote the Rhapsody in Blue for piano and jazz band in less than three weeks. The speed of writing was due to Gershwin having forgotten about the commission until his brother, Ira, called attention to a newspaper article commenting on the upcoming concert. Gershwin , himself, played its premier performance with Paul Whiteman conducting.

Janice Fehlauer and the Symphony play this original version which Gershwin composed for the instruments Paul Whiteman had in his swing orchestra. Later, Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofe (of Grand Canyon Suite fame) re-orchestrated it for a larger orchestra in the version now most familiar to audiences across America.

The composition opens with a now-famous clarinet solo that starts with a low trill and slides up to a high ‘wailing’ tone. This well-known clarinet glissando, however, was not originally conceived by Gershwin. Rather, the clarinet soloist played it as a joke, Gershwin liked it and thus it became part of the score. The blues-like opening theme, which grows out of the clarinet glissando, is marked by the syncopations so typical of Gershwin’s style.

Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin’s most famous composition, is a one-movement work for piano and orchestra in the tradition of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, with a brilliant solo part including several extended cadenzas. The way Gershwin treats his material as a continuous process of development and transition is what gives the Rhapsody the complexity and depth of a serious concert work.

The title reflects its free, rhapsodic form and blues flavor. But it is not true jazz, though it employs jazz-like rhythms and melodies and the orchestration suggests distinctive sounds of jazz. There are three main sections and a coda; the extended piano solos in the main sections reflect Gershwin’s own dazzling pianism and his genius as an improviser.

George Gershwin (named Jacob Gershovitz at birth) was the second of four children born to Russian immigrants, and he grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan. As a boy he taught himself to play hit tunes heard on a neighbor’s player piano. When he was thirteen he began studying with a teacher who recognized his talents and introduced him to piano works ranging from Bach to Liszt to Debussy.

At fifteen he left school to work as a song-plugger demonstrating new songs in the salesroom of a music publisher. In 1918 he started his career as a songwriter, and one year later he wrote La, La, Lucille, his first complete Broadway musical. The next year, his song Swanee was a tremendous hit. During the 1920’s and 1930’s he wrote one brilliant musical after another – including Lady Be Good, Funny Face and Of Thee I Sing – usually with his brother as the lyricist.

Gershwin was not only the creator of the golden age of American musical theatre but also the composer of music for the concert hall, beginning with the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue in 1924. This success was followed by the first performance of his Concerto in F at Carnegie Hall in 1925 and the symphonic poem An American in Paris in 1928. His most extended work is the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). During the last year of his life he lived in Hollywood where he wrote the music for several movies. His life was cut tragically short when he died in 1937 of a brain tumor at the age of 38.

Darius Milhaud was born to a Jewish family in southern France near the end of the nineteenth century. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at age 17 where he studied piano and composition with some of the most prominent composers and theorists of the day. He was exempt from military service during World War I and instead served as an attaché at the French delegation in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1920 he was adopted into the circle of “Les Six”, a group of progressive French composers. However, Les Six was quick to dissolve, and during the 1920s Milhaud adopted an assortment of new musical influences (notably jazz). He composed, performed, and taught ceaselessly in France during the 1920s and 1930s, only abandoning his homeland after all hope of resisting the advances of the German army vanished at the outset of World War II.

In 1939 Milhaud left France and emigrated to America where he secured a teaching position at Mills College in Oakland, California. From 1947 to 1971 he taught alternate years at Mills College and the Paris Conservatoire, until poor health caused him to retire. Notable students of Milhaud included Burt Bacharach and jazz-great Dave Brubeck .

His musical output is impressive: 9 operas, 12 ballets, 12 symphonies, 6 piano concertos, 18 string quartets, and about 400 other compositions in almost every conceivable form and instrumentation. His compositions are particularly noted as being influenced by jazz and for the use of polytonality (music in more than one key simultaneously).

Janice talks about playing

"The original orchestration of this piece feels like a jazz combo to me, with emphasis on the brass and woodwind sounds. This original version, which was unrecorded until 1976, presents a fresh angle on the piece for listeners who are accustomed to the later, more symphonic version."

Le Boeuf sur Le Toit (The Ox on the Roof)

Darius Milhaud

Le Creation du Monde (The Creation of the World)

Darius Milhaud

George Gershwin