Akropolis Chamber Concert (Website)

PRESENTS

SEPTEMBER

2024

3:00PM

Pre-Concert TALK

2:30PM

Akropolis

Concert Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) arr Raaf Hekkema –

"Toccata" from Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917)

Derrick Skye (b. 1982) – A Soulful Nexus (2023)

Willem Jeths (b. 1959) – Maktub (2013)

INTERMISSION

Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) – Lake of Muses (2024)

Jeff Scott (b. 1967) – Homage to Paradise Valley (2019)

Celebrating their 16th season, the Akropolis Reed Quintet is renowned for their adventurous spirit and innovative performances of new works. Hailed as “sonically daring” by BBC Music Magazine, Akropolis has consistently appeared on the Classical Billboard Charts, with their latest album, Are We Dreaming the Same Dream?, reaching #2 in April 2024. Since their founding in 2009, the ensemble has commissioned over 150 works and performed 120 concerts annually across the globe. Beyond the stage, Akropolis engages deeply with their Detroit community, running the Together We Sound festival and mentoring young composers through residencies in local schools.

Program Notes

"Toccata" from Le Tombeau de Couperin

Maurice Ravel lost many close friends in World War I, which for a few short years was known as the War to End All Wars. During his own service in the War, he composed six short piano pieces in memory of friends who had passed away during the war (hence the title, Tombeau, French for "tomb"), and in 1919 orchestrated four of them. Formally, he invoked the classical French dance suite (hence the remainder of the title, de Couperin). The suite is among his most-loved compositions, and has been arranged for many combinations of instruments. However, the final movement performed here, Toccata, is almost never performed in any other form but its original for piano, arranged for reed quintet to capitalize on the unique ability of each instrument to articulate rapidly, perform long phrases, and create colorful textures.

A Soulful Nexus

From the composer: "A Soulful Nexus is a transcultural classical work that blends elements of Persian classical music with ornamental vocal techniques found in solo Balkan vocal melodies and the groove-based polyrhythms characteristic of electronic dance music. From Persian classical music, the piece uses an E koron, which to the Western trained ear may sound like a flat microtonal pitch. However, in Persian classical music, a koron is considered its own note, not a microtone between notes. Sonically, this demonstrates how something initially perceived as an imperfection, over time and with change in perspective, can be seen as an aspect of perfection.

Central to A Soulful Nexus is the use of the melodic framework Gushé Shekaste from Persian classical music, which includes the E koron. Shekaste translated means "broken," due to the relationship between the main tetrachord and auxiliary notes of this melodic framework. Throughout the piece, Morakab-Navazie is used to move between Gushé Shekaste and Darâmad Dastgâh-e Mahur and Dastgâh-e Râstpanjgâh. The fourth movement in particular is inspired by Afro-Persian music from Southern Iran. From Balkan music, the piece uses mordents and fragmented motivic phrasing often used by solo vocalists in Bulgarian women's choir music. From electronic dance music, A Soulful Nexus uses cyclical, groove-based polyrhythms to accompany instrumental solos. The title A Soulful Nexus serves as an invitation for listeners and performers to trace the intricate pathways of these musical idioms interwoven throughout the composition."

A Soulful Nexus has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Mellon Foundation.

Maktub

The word "maktub" appears throughout the international best-selling book, The Alchemist, by Brazilian Author Paulo Coelho, and is the inspiration for Dutch composer's Willem Jeths' reed quintet composition. "Maktub" is first used in The Alchemist by a crystal merchant, who, when giving advice to the book's main character, Santiago, introduces to Santiago the idea of his "personal legend," or Maktub. Maktub means, "it is written," and becomes the subject of Santiago's journey throughout the book to discover his personal legend. Maktub is the concert's most meditative composition. Rather than specific images, Jeths paints a landscape in one, through-composed movement that allows the listener to fill in their own images and ideas, considering the meaning of "Maktub" and their own personal legend. The Alchemist asks the timeless and basic question, "are we in control of the events in our lives, or are they written by fate?" In the novel, Santiago encounters circumstances which make it plain to him that the universe is conspiring so that he can achieve his personal legend, but he also makes key choices along the way.

Lake of Muses

Akropolis commissioned Stephanie Ann Boyd to compose Lake of Muses as part of their annual Together We Sound festival in Detroit, and the piece is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Inspired by Michigan's 5 great lakes, the composer says, "These movements touch on the bits I found most fascinating about these bodies of water, from Lake Superior's cold depths being so clear due to a lack of organic material in the water/being oligotrophic, aka nutrient poor; to all the beauty Lake Michigan has been the canvas and the for in my life so far; to Lake Huron's thousands and thousands of islands and its underwater petrified forest; to Lake Erie's rust belt communities and fruit belt orchards and vineyard before it crashes through Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario, whose human-created harmful algal blooms can be seen from space.

Homage to Paradise Valley

Homage to Paradise Valley was commissioned by and composed for Akropolis in 2019, with support from the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Paradise Valley, a now-displaced neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, became of interest to Jeff Scott after he and Akropolis visited the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, while Jeff's quintet, Imani Winds, was passing through Detroit on tour. Homage to Paradise Valley utilizes Jeff's diverse musical background as a jazz and studio musician in New York City.

"The Valley, the Bottom, and Hastings Street," is a poem by Detroit author Marsha Music, commissioned by Akropolis in 2020 to accompany Jeff Scott's composition. Marsha grew up in the Black Bottom neighborhood. Her father, Joe Von Battle, was a record producer for Aretha Franklin and others. He owned Joe's Records, one of hundreds of music and arts-related cultural centers on Hastings Street.

Comprised of 4 movements, Jeff Scott provides these notes about each movement:

"1. Black Bottom was a predominantly black neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. The term has sometimes been used to apply to the entire neighborhood including Paradise Valley, which reached from the Detroit River north to Grand Boulevard. In the early 20th century, African-American residents became concentrated here during the first wave of the Great Migration to northern industrial cities. Informal segregation operated in the city to keep them in this area of older, less expensive housing. The name of the neighborhood is often erroneously believed to be a reference to the AfricanAmerican community that developed in the 20th century, but it was named during the colonial era by the early French settlers because of its dark, fertile topsoil (known as river bottomlands). Black Bottom/Paradise Valley became known for its African American residents' significant contributions to American music, including Blues, Big Band, and Jazz, from the 1930s to '50s. Black Bottom's substandard housing was eventually cleared and redeveloped for various urban renewal projects, driving the residents out. By the 1960s the neighborhood ceased to exist.

2. Hastings Street ran north-south through Black Bottom and had been a center of Eastern European Jewish settlement before World War I, but by the 1950s, migration transformed the strip into one of Detroit's major African-American communities of black-owned businesses, social institutions, and nightclubs. Music was the focal point of Hastings Street, with world-famous jazz and blues artists visiting almost daily.

3. From the Bantu language of Swahili, "Roho, Pumzika kwa Amani" (Spirits, Rest Peacefully) is a lullaby. My humble offering to the many souls who came before me, and preserved through the middle passage, decades of slavery, disenfranchising laws, and inequality. I am who I am because of those who stood before me. May their spirits rest peacefully.

4. Orchestra Hall, where the Detroit Symphony Orchestra now performs, closed in 1939, but reopened in 1941 as the Paradise Theater. For 10 years it would then offer the best of AfricanAmerican musicians from around the country. Duke Ellington opened Christmas week with his big band, admission was 50 cents, and patrons could stay all day. There were 3 shows every day and 4 on weekends. "B" movies were shown between acts. During the glory days of jazz the Paradise Theater saw Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, and many more. "Paradise Theater Jump" is dedicated to the famed theater and harkens to the up-tempo style of "jump blues," usually played by small groups and featuring saxophone or brass instruments."

One can learn more about this part of Detroit's history by visiting the Detroit Historical Society website at detroithistorical.org.

Special Thank You!

As we celebrate ORCMA’s 80th season, we want to express our deepest gratitude for our generous donors and Sponsors for this season. These contributions have made this milestone season possible, bringing world-class music and enriching experiences to our community. We are incredibly fortunate to have such dedicated partners by our side.

Thank you for being an essential part of this journey with us.

2024/2025 Season Donors & Sponsors

Grand Ambassador

Jim Rome

Ambassadors

Herb & Carolyn Krause

Syd & Becky Ball

Bill Schwenterly

Grand Benefactors

Gene Spejewski

Don Batchelor

Charles and Marlene Darling

Dan & Eva Robbins

Jean Bangham

Lois McKeever

Mary Lou Daugherty

Pat Postma

Richard War & Susan Sharp

Marion Burger

Benefactors

Mary Ellen Klots

Marty Adler-Jasny

Connie and Frank Larimer

Ellen Andrews

Joan Ellen Zucker

Margaret Dory

Patrons

Marese and Thomas Nephew

Miriam Griffin

Catherine Whitten

Irene Sullivan

Melvyn Halbert

Ron & Linda Battle

Tom Rosseel