Battle Creek Symphony
Saturday, October 23, 2009, 7:30 pm
W.K. Kellogg Auditorium
This 70-minute concert combines a towering masterpiece, Dvorak's "Symphony for the New World", with a "behind the music" look at its creation. Through captivating music and images, learn the story of an enigmatic genius and his journey that would change classical music forever.
Following the stunning success of Appalachian Spring, photographer Michael Sample will return with images from National Parks and Public lands. This year we will also include selected images from the talented local artist Eleanor DeVries. 12 of Mrs. DeVries' series, "Wind and Water" will also be on display in the lobby.
Dvorak: New World Symphony
Advance tickets start at just $8
sponsored by Eleanor and Robert DeVries and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Anton Dvorak's New World Symphony in E minor was his fifth symphony and was composed in 1893 during his visit to a Bohemian community in Spillville, Iowa. He was in this country for three years, serving as the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. While in the city, he felt homesick for his home country of Bohemia, but in the summers he was able to go to Spillville, Iowa, where he felt more at home, playing Bohemian melodies on a church organ for people from his homeland.
Having loved the native melodies of his home country, Dvorak quite naturally became interested in native melodies in this country. "I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies, he wrote. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."
People have claimed, in fact, that the influence of Black and Native American music is so strong that The New World Symphony is more American than Bohemian The opening performance of the symphony took place in New York City, by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and it was immediately loved.
The newspapers say that never has a composer had such a triumph, Dvorak himself said. The public applauded so much that I felt like a king in my box. Then, just two weeks later, the Boston Symphony performed it.
In the first movement, he introduces a syncopated theme in the horns and lower strings. Then he gives the flutes, oboes and violins the second main theme, which is said to have a slight similarity to the spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.
The second movement, a Largo, contains one of the most famous melodies ever written, a melody which later became best known as Goin Home, the spiritual which was derived from it. Interestingly enough, Dvork stated that he regarded the symphony's second movement as a "sketch or study for a later work to be based on Longfellows The Song of Hiawatha.
The third movement, a scherzo which features woodwinds, is said to resemble an Indian ritual dance. In the coda of this movement you can hear the principal theme of the first movement.
Then in the finale, along with its jubilant main theme, you can catch the Goin Home theme from the second movement as well as a fragment of the scherzo movement and the principal subject of the first movement.
Tonight's production of the New World Symphony will bring the music alive with stunning national park photography, plus words and images which will tell the story of its creation.
Linda Jo Scott, program annotator
Photographers
Michael Sample - biography tba
Eleanor R. DeVries
Eleanor DeVries graduated from Valparaiso University, Indiana, in 1957, with a BS in Education. As the DeVries’ four children grew older, Eleanor continued her education. She received M.A. and M.F.A. degrees, with honors, from WMU, in 1987 and 1988, respectively. While at the university, she received first place in the Annual Student Art Competition and also the Johnson-Howard Company Merit Award.
Eleanor taught in the Chicago, IL and Dayton, OH public schools, the Art Center of Battle Creek, Kellogg Community College, and the Institute for Learning in Retirement. She developed and taught a summer class for children called “New Angles for New Photographers” and presented a yearlong series of slide programs to integrate art with the social studies curriculum for 300 sixth graders in the Lakeview, MI. School District.
In 2009, Ella Sharp Museum’s juror again included two photographs in its State Wide Fine Arts Competition; Carnegie Center for the Art’s seventeen-county 2009 Regional Juried Arts Completion chose two watercolors. The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts juror, Larry Fink, chose one of her photographs to include in the West Michigan Area Show: 2009. Other recent juried shows included the Midland Center for the Arts’ statewide all-media 49th Annual Greater Michigan Art Exhibition, (two photographs),the Art Center of Battle Creek’s statewide Michigan Artists’ Competition (two watercolors.) One photograph was included in the juried Regional Women in the Arts Exhibition.
From 1987, she has had artwork accepted in more than 145 juried regional, statewide and national competitions in such diverse media as acrylic, oil and watercolor painting; photography; and hand-made paper. Her work has been featured in approximately fifteen one-person exhibitions. In all media her creations show love of nature and bright colors and her interest in spiritual and psychological ideas. The Art Center of Battle Creek, Kellogg Community College, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan Watercolor Society’s statewide exhibits, Carnegie Museum, Lansing Art Gallery, Central Michigan University, and the Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art in Midland, MI., have all included her work. She has also had works accepted in juried statewide and national religious art competitions in Evanston, IL, Detroit, MI and East Lansing, MI.
Her work has been diverse. Eleanor has continued to create watercolor/mixed media paintings. These bright, colorful images include prints of leaves and seeds, and sprayed as well as brushed paint. Current and past series of photographs and paintings have these topics: Seedtime and Harvest, Pathways, Along the Trail, Growth, Hard Places, Woodland Musings, and Seedtime and Harvest. The sprayed paint and multiple layers encourage a variety of interpretations. Photography is also a medium in which she expresses personal ideas.
In 2003, Western Michigan University celebrated 100 years. During this year Eleanor was one of 100 alumni, from their 3,400 graduates, who were honored as the “Art Alumni 100”. In 2004, she was honored to be inducted into the eight-member “Alumni Art Academy”. In 2000, with the Miller family serving as Honorary Chairs and with Eleanor and Robert DeVries serving as the Public Sector Chairs, the United Arts Council of greater Battle Creek campaign successfully raised $500,000. She and her husband have loaned items from their personal collection and were co-curators of three exhibits: Eastern Orientation: the Art and Culture of China, (2003); The Art of Adornment, (2006); and Art from the Land of the Snow Leopard (2008).
The DeVries’ received the 2004 Battle Creek Rotary Club Red Rose Award for distinguished community service and the 2007 Michigan Governor’s Civic Leader in Arts and Culture Award; they served as Honorary Co-Chairs of the 2008 Governor’s Awards for Arts and Culture. In 2008 they chaired the successful “Empty Bowl” fund-raiser which brought together artists, dignitaries, students, and educators to benefit the eight-county Food Bank of SouthCentral Michigan. For the first time textile artists from Cal-Co Quilters and watercolorists from the Southwest Michigan Watercolor Society donated items.
Western Michigan University created the Medici Society for supporters of all the visual and performing arts. Annually when the group meets, one or two individuals are honored as recipients of the Cosimo Cap. In 2009, Robert and Eleanor DeVries were the honorees.
Join Mailing List
