CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The New York Pops

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The New York Pops
Andrew Litton, Conductor and Pianist
Morenike Fadayomi (Bess/Clara)
Howard Haskin (Sportin' Life)
Kevin Short (Porgy)
Angela Simpson (Serena)
Dallas Symphony Chorus
David Davidson, Director

GERSHWIN Overture from Crazy for You (arr. William D. Brohn)
GERSHWIN Dayful of Song (arr. Sid Ramin and Andrew Litton)
·· Hold On
·· I Must Write a Song
·· Hot
·· One Minute More
·· Sutton Place
·· My Honor Was at Stake
·· Machinery Goes Mad
GERSHWIN GEORGE GERSHWIN / IRA GERSHWIN / DUBOSE HEYWARD "Porgy and Bess Suite" (arr. Andrew Litton)

Sponsored by KPMG LLP

Program Notes:

by Andrew Litton

My love affair with the music of George Gershwin started when I was a child. I grew up in New York City, living just yards from where Gershwin wrote many of his greatest works. He has always been a hero and an endless source of fascination for me. His virtuosic piano playing, his natural gift of melody, his inexhaustible enthusiasm and ebullient personality—I wish I could have known him! His sister-in-law Leonore once said: “Whenever he entered a room, he captured it instantly and completely, not because he was overbearing but because he had an irresistible infectious vitality, an overwhelming personal magnetism beyond that of most of the greatest movie stars.”

The combination of George Gershwin’s music and his older brother Ira’s equally brilliant lyrics soon earned the two men enormous fame. Even with his success as a songwriter, George had always yearned to write “serious” music, and his crowning achievement has to be his operatic masterpiece, Porgy and Bess. In 1991, I was on the phone with one of the great Porgys of our time, Willard White, moaning about an upcoming concert we had together with the London Symphony, where we were supposed to be performing “excerpts from Porgy and Bess.” There were simply no great options when it came to “excerpts” unless we went with the well-worn Robert Russell Bennett arrangement, which underlined the score’s lighter side, and included none of the great orchestral passages that George wrote. Willard said, “Well Andrew, why don’t you make your own Suite?”

The sheer audacity of that suggestion stunned me until I realized that there really was a need for a Porgy and Bess that could be done in the concert hall by a symphony orchestra and remain true to the original intentions of the creators. I crafted my Suite so that it is entirely made up of Gershwin’s own music and orchestration, only calls for four singers and chorus so that it would be within the budget of most orchestras, and only lasts 65 minutes, or one-third of the opera, thereby making it possible to perform something else on the program. Of course, with two-thirds of the opera missing, and only four soloists, there are inevitable and regrettable omissions, like the role of Crown and the spectacular Final Trio, but how can the person who has been singing the role of Bess all night, and has already left Catfish Row, come back and take part in “Oh Bess, where is my Bess?” Besides, like the equally climactic, and similarly placed final trio from Der Rosenkavalier, much of the power of the moment is lost if you haven’t experienced all the music that leads up to it. Having said all that, I have tried to include entire scenes, and not just the hit tunes, so we really do get the panoply of styles and emotions that encompass this masterpiece.

In 1995, I had the great honor to be music director for a concert presented at the Warner Theater in Washington, DC, by the Library of Congress in celebration of its George and Ira Gershwin Collection, and sponsored by the Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Estate. We were given access to a dozen or so Gershwin songs in manuscript form that had never been published or performed. Boxes and boxes of these songs, many of them just fragments or sketches for future ideas, were stored in Ira’s house before his death in 1983.

Since these manuscripts are written for the piano, we picked a group of songs to flesh out a piano and orchestra arrangement, not unlike the treatment of the original Gershwin Songbook. With the help of arranger and orchestrator Sid Ramin, seven unknown songs have been given new life: “Hold On,” “I Must Write a Song,” “Hot,” “One Minute More,” “Sutton Place,” “My Honor Was at Stake,” and “Machinery Goes Mad.” The Gershwin Estate decided to name the medley after a line in the verse of the hit song I Got Rhythm: “Birds in the tree sing their dayful of song …”. It is therefore our great pleasure to present the New York premiere of seven “new” Gershwin songs under the title Dayful of Song.

The New York Pops
Andrew Litton, Conductor and Pianist
This summer Andrew Litton brought the Bergen Philharmonic to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, made the Norwegian orchestra’s long-awaited debut at the London BBC Proms, returned for his fifth season as Artistic Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest, and appeared with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival. In November, Mr. Litton took the Bergen Philharmonic on an 18-day, 12-concert US tour commemorating the centenary of Grieg’s death (Grieg was one of Litton’s predecessors as head of the 242-year-old orchestra). The orchestra’s first return to America in 41 years was capped with a Carnegie Hall appearance on November 6.

In 2005 Mr. Litton concluded an acclaimed 12-year tenure as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony, during which he produced 27 new recordings and six nationally televised concerts (including an Amazing Music series in use in American schools), made four Carnegie Hall appearances and three major European tours, and raised the orchestra endowment from $17 million to $100 million. Now Music Director Emeritus, he returns regularly to conduct his former orchestra. In addition, he performs as conductor, piano soloist, and chamber musician at Minnesota’s Sommerfest. In 2006 he spearheaded Norwegian initiatives to create the New Bergen Opera company, which premiered with a triumphant Tosca and this season performs the David McVicar / Glyndebourne production of Bizet’s Carmen.

Recent additions to Mr. Litton’s discography include a Deutsche Grammophon CD of new works for violin and orchestra by John Tavener featuring Nicola Benedetti and the London Philharmonic, and a complete opera recording of Ambroise Thomas’ La cour de Célimène with the Philharmonia Orchestra for Opera Rara. Mr. Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic record for Sweden’s BIS label and Britain’s Hyperion label. A BIS complete Mendelssohn symphony cycle is currently scheduled for release, and a disc of piano concertos by Sinding and Alnaes for Hyperion was No. 2 on Gramophone Magazine’s best seller list.

Last season Litton made debuts with Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Vienna Tonkunstler at the Musikverein, and with Finland’s Lahti Symphony. Highlights of the current season include return appearances with the London Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony (where he continues as Conductor Laureate), BBC Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Japan. In addition, he makes debuts with the MDR Radio Symphony Leipzig and the Orchestre National de Lille.

Morenike Fadayomi (Bess/Clara)
Morenike Fadayomi studied in Vienna and has performed at the Gärtnerplatztheater Munich, Cairo Opera House, Frankfurt Opera, Musiktheater Amsterdam, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Wiener Volksoper, Stadttheater Basel, and Bregenzer Festspiele. She has been a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein since 1997.

Ms. Fadayomi has performed the roles of Micaëla (Carmen), Mimí (La Bohéme), Liù (Turandot), Irene (Tamerlano), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Marie (Verkaufte Braut), Bess (Porgy and Bess), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), and the title roles in Salome, Aida, Kát’a Kabanová, and Tosca, among others.

Last season she was named Best Singer of the Year by Opernwelt magazine. She made her debut at the Los Angeles Opera this spring as Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which she also performed at the Washington National Opera in 2005.

Howard Haskin (Sportin' Life)
Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Howard Haskin has performed more than 50 roles with opera companies throughout the world including the Opéra de Paris–Palais Garnier, Théâtre du Châtelet, San Francisco Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Mr. Haskin has triumphed in the title roles of Otello, Oedipus Rex, and Peter Grimes. Other operatic roles include Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), Don José (Carmen), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Jason (Médée), Paris (King Priam), Samson (Samson et Dalila), and Sportin’ Life (Porgy and Bess). Mr. Haskin created the role of Vova for the world premiere of Schnittke’s Life with an Idiot at De Nederlandse Opera. Also in demand as a concert soloist, he has performed with major orchestras worldwide, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de France, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. At Carnegie Hall, Mr. Haskin appeared as the Jailer/Grand Inquisitor in Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero with Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, a role he has also performed in Paris, Amsterdam, Florence, Tokyo, and Stockholm. A live recording of this last performance, under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen and released by Sony Classical, received a Grammy nomination.

Kevin Short (Porgy)
Versatile bass-baritone Kevin Short has performed around the world in roles ranging from Osmin in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and Verdi’s Attila to Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen and the Count and Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro. Opera companies at which he has performed include the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington Opera Seattle Opera, Canadian Opera, Vancouver Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Cologne Opera, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and the opera companies in Basel, Bern, and St. Gallen, Switzerland. He has also performed in important festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, and Valencia, Spain. Orchestral engagements include performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Holland Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Swiss and Italian RAI Orchestra, Radio France Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Hiroshima Symphony, and the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics Festival Orchestra at the opening ceremonies. Mr. Short received his training from Morgan State University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School.

Angela Simpson (Serena)
Soprano Angela Renée Simpson has been heard with the Hartford Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Colorado Springs Symphony, the Charleston Symphony, the Novaya Opera Theater in Russia, and with the Bravo Music Festival singing the Requiems of Verdi, Mozart, and Fauré; Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony; Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor; and Barber’s Knoxville 1915. Ms. Simpson’s other roles include Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, Leonora in Il trovatore and La forza del destino, and the title role in Aida.

In 2008, Ms. Simpson will perform the role of Serena in the Dallas Opera’s premiere production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and make her debut with Opéra Comique of Paris for its premiere production of the same opera. Ms. Simpson has also performed with the Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Miami Opera, Piedmont Opera, and New York City Opera. In 2005, she performed the role of Cilla in Michigan Opera Theratre’s world premiere production of Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner, also featuring Denyce Graves. She repeated the role with Opera Carolina in 2006. In 2002, in performances with the New York City Opera in the televised broadcast of Live From Lincoln Center as Serena in Porgy and Bess, Ms. Simpson “came close to stopping the show” (New York Daily News).

Dallas Symphony Chorus
David Davidson, Director
The 230-member Dallas Symphony Chorus’s first appearance as the official chorus of the Dallas Symphony took place under Maestro Mata’s direction at the Music Hall at Fair Park on September 23, 1977, with a performance of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. Since then, the chorus has grown through the tenures of chorus masters William Graham, Stewart Clark, Frank Sargent, and Ronald Shirey. In December 1994, David R. Davidson was named the chorus’s fifth, and current, director.

All of the musicians in the chorus are volunteers who attend weekly Monday evening rehearsals. Their concert schedule spans the orchestra’s Classical season and includes the occasional pops and summer concert. Since 1988, the DSC’s Christmas performance schedule has expanded from two performances to 11.

The Dallas Symphony Chorus has made three tours to the European continent. Most recently, in 2006, the ensemble traveled to South America, performing Brahms’s German Requiem in Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires. The Dallas Symphony Chorus has made over a dozen commercial recordings on the RCA, ProArte, Dorian, Delos, and Hyperion labels.

Tonight marks the DSOC’s third performance at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops.