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Pianist Lars Potteiger will team up with Berks Sinfonietta to perform \u201cGershwin Comes Alive.\u201d (Courtesy of Boscov\u2019s Berks Jazz Fest)<\/p>\nBerks Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra founded and directed by David McConnell in 2014, will makes its Boscov\u2019s Berks Jazz Fest debut with \u201cGershwin Comes Alive,\u201d an all-Gershwin program featuring pianist Lars Potteiger performing George Gershwin\u2019s beloved \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concert will be held on March 28 in the Miller Center for the Arts in Reading at 6 p.m. Opening for the show will be the Berks High School All-Star Jazz Band.<\/p>\n
The Sinfonietta has a reputation for excellence in exploring both classics and contemporary classical music, giving thoughtful and precise interpretations. The orchestra draws musicians of all ages (including gifted students) from Berks County and beyond, and McConnell often programs innovative, avant-garde works, and occasional premieres, along with masterworks by Beethoven or Mozart.<\/p>\n
Pianist Lars Potteiger will team up with Berks Sinfonietta to perform \u201cGershwin Comes Alive.\u201d (Courtesy of Boscov\u2019s Berks Jazz Fest)<\/p>\n
McConnell and Potteiger, who is a jazz pianist, are both stepping out of their usual genres for this concert, which they performed last summer in Reading and Lancaster. They are following in the footsteps of Gershwin, who lived with one foot in jazz and one foot in classical music. In \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d the composer managed to create a hybrid of the two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a departure from what I normally do,\u201d Potteiger said. \u201cSo, I was prepping everything as it was notated in the score.\u201d<\/p>\n
But later, as he and McConnell were preparing a talk on the Gershwin program: \u201cIt got me thinking about the piece, and I basically threw out everything I\u2019d been doing and decided to improvise the solo cadenzas. I thought it was more in the spirit of what the piece was when Gershwin wrote and performed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He particularly concentrated on the big cadenza solo in the piece\u2019s center, noticing the harmonic structure, which turned out to be identical to the Russian song \u201cDark Eyes.\u201d So, in the first performance last summer, he wove portions of that song into his improvisation. The second concert his improv was different, and at the jazz festival it will be distinct from the other two.<\/p>\n
It took the orchestra some getting used to, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as long as David knows about how I\u2019m getting out of (the improv), he can bring in the ensemble,\u201d Potteiger said.<\/p>\n
The Rhapsody was commissioned in 1924 by jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman for concert called \u201cAn Experiment in Modern Music.\u201d Because he was on a tight deadline, Gershwin wound up improvising the solo parts at the premiere. Ferde Grofe, who helped with the original orchestration, in 1942 arranged it for symphonic orchestra, and the cadences were written into the piano score. (No one knows what the original improvisations sounded like.)<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I knew I wanted to do this piece, Lars was my first thought, because I\u2019ve so admired his playing,\u201d David McConnell said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen his incredible music-making over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was inspired to have Berks Sinfonietta perform the Rhapsody when he discovered that British pianist\/organist\/composer\/arranger Iain Farrington had created an arrangement for chamber orchestra.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s excellent at making chamber arrangements of bigger works,\u201d McConnell said. \u201cAnd when I saw that he had done \u2018An American in Paris,\u2019 it turned into an all-Gershwin program.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latter piece, he said, is \u201cbrilliantly done, and puts that work into the purview of smaller groups without any loss of what the large orchestra brings.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jazz-influenced symphonic tone poem, first performed in 1928, was inspired by time spent by Gershwin in Paris, and famously includes four taxi horns in the score.<\/p>\n
Also on the program will be the \u201cFunny Face Suite,\u201d based on the Gershwin songs in the 1927 Broadway musical, which starred Fred and Adele Astaire. (The 1957 film version of \u201cFunny Face\u201d also starred Astaire, with Audrey Hepburn, but it had an entirely different plot and only used four of the songs.) The suite includes \u201cS\u2019Wonderful,\u201d \u201cMy One and Only,\u201d and three others.<\/p>\n
Another suite, \u201cLady Be Good!,\u201d is based on the 1924 stage show, which also starred the Astaires. The score was stuffed with obscure Gershwin songs, some of which are used in the suite; audiences will recognize \u201cFascinatin\u2019 Rhythm\u201d and the title song.<\/p>\n
For both suites, McConnell said, \u201cThere\u2019s no conductor\u2019s score; just a piano score with cues written in.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this is typical of scores played by pit orchestras, and \u201cit seems disorganized at first, perhaps, but then everyone in the pit learns to listen in a way that maybe doesn\u2019t always happen in a classical concert. It teaches a different set of skills, and they become better musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lesser-known piece \u201cLullaby for String Orchestra,\u201d Gershwin\u2019s first attempt at an orchestral work in 1919 as a 21-year-old student, is \u201cvery quiet and delicate,\u201d compared to the other pieces on the program, he said, noting that it gives the audience five minutes to focus in on a tiny, little-known gem.<\/p>\n