Louisville Orchestra
Teddy Abrams, conductor

TJ Cole, synthesizer
Amanda Majewski, soprano
Keisha Dorsey, speaker

Louisville Chamber Choir
University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale
Kent Hatteberg, director
Youth Performing Arts School Chamber Choir
Jacob Cook, director

Whitney Hall
Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts
Louisville, KY
March 4, 2023

TJ Cole: Phenomenal of the Earth
Neuwirth: Masaot/Clocks Without Hands
Bernstein: Symphony No. 3, Kaddish

It isn’t often that a work from the 1960s is the oldest work on a program from a major symphony orchestra. But such was the case on the Louisville Orchestra’s enterprising selection Saturday evening, the first of their “Journeys of Faith” series which thoughtfully explores connections of faith and music. Opening the program was a product of the LO’s Creators Corps, in which they have not one, but three composers in residence this season.

Featured Saturday was TJ Cole in the world premiere of Phenomenal of the Earth, scored for synthesizer and orchestra – with the composer also serving as soloist on the synth. Clad in a dress adorned with sunflowers, Cole’s attire gave a not so subtle hint as to the work’s central theme, an expression of their love for the natural world. There’s a bit of a duality at play in selecting an electronic instrument to represent nature, but the synthesizer has the ability to adapt in real time, responding to the natural world’s constant state of flux.

Matters began with a barely audible drone, soon to build to a wash of cacophony, as if overwhelmed by the natural surroundings – much of the work was written during the composer’s residency in Bernheim Forest, a place with a longstanding connection to the arts. The synthesizer blended well with the orchestra in a way that didn’t feel terribly contrived, illuminating the possibilities of a concerto for synthesizer. I was somewhat reminded of the work of Mason Bates who has an uncanny ability to meld acoustic instruments with electronica. Cole’s piece felt a bit repetitive at times, but drew novel sounds from the musicians on stage – most memorably, with plastic tubes to generate the sound of the wind, as well as Cole’s own vocalizations, later joined by other members of the orchestra. A work of great energy, it was a lovely paean to nature, ending much like it began in mirror of the cyclical quality of its inspiration.

Olga Neuwirth’s 2013 work Masaot/Clocks Without Hands was written on a commission from the Vienna Philharmonic to commemorate the centennial of Mahler’s death. Winner of the Grawenmeyer Award in 2022 – awarded just a few miles away at the University of Louisville – the Austrian composer also attended music director Teddy Abrams’ alma mater, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Abrams had such an engaging way of introducing the work, it made one excited to dive in, certainly quelling any anxieties about an unfamiliar contemporary piece. The work was inspired by a dream the composer had about her grandfather, whose experience of anti-Semitism in fin de siècle Vienna likely mirrored Mahler’s.

The titular “clocks without hands” refers to the inner rhythm we all have, represented in the scoring by ticking metronomes. Its opening went from quiet to clangorous in the blink of an eye, with brassy material offering stark juxtapositions and simultaneous strands à la Mahler. (I have heard this work once before, when it was quite fittingly paired with a Mahler symphony during a Cleveland Orchestra performance). Concertmaster Gabriel Lefkowitz had some fine solo passages, including a bit of klezmer-sounding material. The work proceeded very much in phantasmagoric stream of consciousness, densely textured, only to be suddenly distilled to the ever-ticking clocks. A work of searing impact, it retreated to silence at its conclusion.

None of Leonard Bernstein’s three symphonies bear much resemblance to the conventions of the form. The Third – titled Kaddish – is an oratorio in all but name, with parts for narrator, chorus, and soprano soloist. Central to the work is the Hebrew Kaddish, and the work bears a dedication to the memory of JFK who was assassinated just weeks before its December 1963 premiere. A wordless drone in the choir set a background for the narration, given with authority by Keisha Dorsey. Plaintive opening material in the orchestra was colored by thorny dissonances, and played with an innate understanding of Bernstein’s musical language – quite far removed here from the more populist idioms with which one might associate the composer. A setting of the Kaddish concludes each of the three movements; in the first, one was struck by the richness of the choir and orchestra, arresting in its urgency.

The second movement Din-Torah began with a vibrant array of percussion, echoed by cacophony and discord amongst the choir. The ensuing Kaddish had calming effect, encouraged by Amanda Majewski’s lustrous soprano in rejuvenating prayer, melding with the angelic voices of the women of the choir. Fleeting and rapid-fire playing marked the concluding movement, more unsettling than playful despite its moniker of “scherzo.” The music built to a terrifying climax, answered by a richly lyrical theme for the final Kaddish. The inclusion of children’s choir resounded with a certain purity before the contrapuntal complexity of the closing fugue that led towards a thunderous end. A deeply moving evening, with the works selected offering thought-provoking contemplations of respectively nature, time, and life itself.