Raymond Harvey Conducts 'Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra' of David Baker Mar. 27-28

[Raymond Harvey, Music Director and Conductor, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra]

The African American conductor Raymond Harvey is Music Director and Conductor of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. He received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and graduated from the Yale School of Music with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Gershwin & Ellington

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 AT 8PM

SUNDAY, MARCH 28 AT 3PM

CHENERY AUDITORIUM

RAYMOND HARVEY, CONDUCTOR & PIANO

Raymond Harvey returns to the keyboard to perform and conduct Gershwin's Concerto in F.

DAVID BAKER: Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestra

DUKE ELLINGTON: Suite from "The River"

GEORGE GERSHWIN: Concerto in F

PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth:

David N. Baker

b. Indianapolis, December 21, 1931

"Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra

David Baker is the Chairman of the Jazz Department at Indiana University’s prestigious Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington. He also serves as an adjunct professor for Indiana’s African American and African Diaspora Studies Department."

"The idea for a composition featuring cell phones came from Paul Freeman, founder of the Chicago Sinfonietta. In 1996 Freeman began serving as music director for the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, leading to many international flights. He says, 'I was sitting at the gate in the Prague airport one day and saw so many people using cell phones for last-minute conversations before boarding their flights. I thought there must be some way of combining this technological accomplishment with music.' Baker accepted the challenge with enthusiasm. It took five weeks, including several sleepless nights, for him to move from concept to concertino.”

"Baker’s artistic aim in the Concertino was to explore the balance between organization and chaos and to place audience members into a position in which they might start listening more closely to their everyday lives (following the aesthetic lines of American composers like Charles Ives and John Cage). Just before the 2006 premiere of the piece by the Chicago Sinfonietta, Freeman told his audience, 'You may use as much imagination or as little as you like.'” [Paul Freeman (b. 1936) and Duke Ellington (1899-1974) are profiled at AfriClassical.com]

Maestro Raymond Harvey
Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra
David Baker
Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestra
Ellington Suite
The River