8th Symphony Concert: Life energy

From where do we draw our vital energy? What makes life worth living? Harmony with nature? Freedom and individuality? Cultural belonging? This concert will present three very personal musical answers to this question.

“The beauty and the chaos of the rain in Wellington inspired me to a musical response. Rainphase draws on characteristics of water as rain: its shape and shapelessness, transparency and density, energy and stillness”, says 30 year-old composer Salina Fisher from New Zealand about her orchestral work from 2015, for which she received New Zealand’s SOUNZ Contemporary Award for contemporary music as the then youngest ever award winner.

Composer Aaron Copland from New York spent his lifetime searching for a typically American sound in classical music. That is why his clarinet concerto, which was commissioned by Benny Goodman, combined classical instruments like solo clarinet, strings, harp and piano with jazz sounds. But this concert also has its melancholy moments, which might have been a way for Copland to deal with his frequent experiences of exclusion due to his Jewish heritage, communist leanings and homosexuality. The intricacies of this concerto will be developed by clarinettist Sebastian Mainz who hails from Hanover and has held the solo position within the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart since 2010.

Creative energy as motivation for the liberation from heteronomy may well have stimulated Ludwig van Beethoven when he composed his Symphony No. 7. His contemporaries certainly would have understood this symphony with its rousing final movement as an appeal for the liberation of nations, especially since its first performance took place immediately after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 as part of a charity concert benefitting those who were fighting against Napoleon.

Not least with this spirited symphony, conductor Gemma New, who also comes from New Zealand and is making her debut with the State Orchestra of Lower Saxony Hanover, will present an energetic conclusion to this concert season.

Program

Salina Fisher
Rainphase

Aaron Copland
Concerto for Clarinet, Strings, Harp and Piano

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92

Performers

Sebastian Manz, Clarinet
Gemma New, Conductor
Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover