The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus (LJSC) concert this weekend is inspired by the interplay of music, art and nature. For this performance, the group combines a selection of music by French impressionists with works by living composers — plus a video collaboration between a visual artist and a scientist.
Each composer was chosen not only for their approach for representing nature, but also for the way they create color in their music.
"When we talk about color in orchestral music, that's synonymous with the name, Maurice Ravel. He’s a composer that I always wanted to perform with this orchestra, and we're going to be playing his second suite from 'Daphnis et Chloe,' a ballet he wrote," said Sameer Patel, the conductor.
"Another name that is often mentioned when we talk about orchestral color is another musical impressionist, Claude Debussy."
Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe" is a sweeping, gorgeous piece of music for orchestra and choir. Patel said Ravel was like "an original sound designer," inventing textures and soundscapes to depict the concept of dawn.
The Debussy piece, "Sirènes," the third and final movement of his "Nocturnes," represents the sea in the moonlight.
Gabriel Fauré's "Pavane" opens with a distinctive, dancing flute solo, which is echoed by the chorus throughout the piece.
Patel said that one of the orchestra's missions is to champion music being written right now, so it was important to pair these classic works with living composers.
For example, Gabriella Smith’s "Bioluminescence Chaconne" reflects the ocean phenomenon of bioluminescence. Smith often infuses nature into her compositions, including field recordings and themes honoring wild spaces and the changing climate.
"Luminosity: Colorists Past and Present"
7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7-8.
Mandeville Auditorium, 9500 Gilman Dr., UC San Diego. $45.
Smith's work will be accompanied by "Resonance," a new immersive video installation by artist Iyvone Khoo and marine biologist Dr. Michael Latz. The video will be screened during the orchestra’s performance.
“Resonance” is a follow-up to a previous work about bioluminescence by Khoo and Latz, initially showcased at the Birch Aquarium in 2017. At the time, Khoo told KPBS that she was inspired by a nighttime visit to a beach in Mexico.
"I could see the Milky Way and the infinite amount of stars above me. And there was a bloom, so the bioluminescent wave was just crashing onto the beach," Khoo said. "That was the moment I realized (there was) the microcosm and the macrocosm — and there’s me, right there in the middle."
Vivian Fung's "Violin Concerto No. 1" will be performed by the orchestra with soloist Nancy Zhou. Fung's composition draws on both Western styles and Balinese gamelan music.
"It fuses these two different styles together in a remarkable way that not only showcases the virtuosity of our soloist but also of the orchestra — it's not an easy piece to put together. There's a lot of technicality in the writing. But it is beautifully orchestrated, it's extremely colorful and that's why I think it fits so nicely in this program," Patel said. "We get a little bit of the taste of the original colorists in the French composers that are in the second half (of the concert). But we also have music from this current generation that stands on the shoulders of these great composers from the past."
Patel described playing works from boundary-pushing contemporary composers like Smith and Fung is a particularly interesting undertaking for orchestras.
"One of the things that I love about living composers — especially as I look at their music or listen to their music — I'm just in awe of how they're able to create the sounds that they have,” Patel said. “That is the case in this work that we're going to perform, 'Bioluminescence Chaconne,’ which has these soundscapes that sound not traditionally orchestral, but they sound like they could be happening in nature somewhere."
