A New Direction for University Philharmonia Orchestra

November 2009

Betsy Goolian

This year, new faculty member Christopher James Lees, BM ’04, MM ’06, who studied conducting with Kenneth Kiesler, director of university orchestras, is serving as interim associate director of orchestras while conducting the University Philharmonia Orchestra and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble.

Lees crafts his programming with intention, building a repertoire over the course of a year that increasingly challenges the student players in his ensembles, as they grow and cohere as a performing group. We managed to catch up with Lees, who is also associate conductor of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, between rehearsals.

How did you select the programming for this Monday’s concert?

It was a matter of choosing both great music and music that is instructive to the orchestra. These three pieces just happen to have nature as a common theme. The Dvorák Carnival Overture was the middle of a trilogy of overtures—Nature, Life and Love—that includes In Nature’s Realm, which the orchestra played last year, and Othello. The main theme of In Nature’s Realm comes back in the Carnival Overture, an open, pastoral melody, a call to the morning.

I like putting pieces that have commonalities next to each other. With the Dvorák next to the Liszt next to the Beethoven, you hear each composer’s different take on the forces of nature. Liszt questions whether if peacefulness in nature is only a fleeting idea, something that man cannot count on for solace. Is his version any more valid than Beethoven’s very real feeling of repose while he’s immersed in the natural world? One seems to contradict the other. The intention is to inspire a conversation with the audience, and, hopefully, within and amongst the students themselves.

The University Philharmonia Orchestra’s second concert of the season is November 16 at Hill Auditorium at 8:00 p.m.