Donato Cabrera, Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, will make his St.Paul Chamber Orchestra debut conducting two pieces by the composer, Thomas Adès. One of the Adès compositions, Chamber Symphony for 15 Players, Opus 2, features the accordion played by Dee Langley. The performances are April 2 & 3, 8 PM at the Ordway Theater, 345 Washington Street, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Donato Cabrera joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2009 as Assistant Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the Youth Orchestra. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in April 2009, when he stepped in on short notice to lead the Orchestra in a program of Mozart and the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition. This season, Mr. Cabrera leads the Orchestra in performances accompanying Charlie Chaplin’s film The Gold Rush; during the summer, he will conduct concerts for the Summer & the Symphony series. Mr. Cabrera also conducts the Orchestra in Concerts for Kids, Adventures in Music, and Music for Families concerts, in addition to leading SFS Youth Orchestra rehearsals and concerts.
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, now in its 51st season, is the nation’s only full-time professional chamber orchestra and is widely regarded as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world. In collaboration with four Artistic Partners – Roberto Abbado, Douglas Boyd, Dawn Upshaw and Christian Zacharias – the 35 virtuoso musicians present more than 150 concerts and educational programs each year, and are regularly heard on public radio’s Performance Today which reaches 1,101,000 listeners each week on 242 stations, and SymphonyCast reaching 218,100 listeners each week on 104 stations. The SPCO has released 67 recordings, commissioned 127 new works, and performed the world premiere of 49 additional compositions. The SPCO has earned the distinction of 14 ASCAP awards for adventurous programming. Renowned for its artistic excellence and remarkable versatility of musical styles, the SPCO tours nationally and internationally, including performances in premier venues in Europe, Asia and South America. Launched in 1995, the SPCO’s award-winning CONNECT education program reaches 5,000 students annually in 16 Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools.
The following text, mentioning the role of the accordion in the composition, is from the program notes from SPCO:
“Fractured jazz sonorities predominate in the first movement, with pizzicato bass, muted trumpet, and sinuous licks from the basset and bass clarinets. The airy second movement begins with a low rumble of notes from the prepared piano, a sound that cycles repeatedly underneath the hovering upper layers. The accordion makes a tentative entrance, but soon the music accelerates into the flowing triplets and swoops of the third section; this breaks off suddenly at the climax, leaving only the quiet wheezing of the accordion to start the final slow section. Ghostly blooms from the strings and deep responses from the clarinets spin out to a whispered conclusion.”
Dee Langley specializes in both solo and ensemble work on the accordion and has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ancia Quartet, Minnesota Sinfonia, Minneapolis Philharmonic and Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra. She is currently the President of the Accordionists and Teachers Guild, International and event coordinator for the NE Accordion Festival. Dee lives in NE Minneapolis and teaches music privately.
For further information: Dee Langley, squeezermn@yahoo.com
