Artpark, the BPO’s summer home
This year’s Artpark lineup features expanded and eclectic offerings, including Robert Franz’s farewell shows
“Carmina Burana,” Carl Orff’s music set to medieval poetry, has filled a lot of colorful roles. At hockey games at HSBC Arena, it thunders from the organ, inspiring the Sabres toward victory. In medieval epics like “Excalibur,” it echoes as knights head into battle. Oliver Stone used “Carmina Burana” in “The Doors.” The Trans-Siberian Orchestra performs it, too.
Saturday, “Carmina Burana” will serve an especially magnificent purpose. It will open the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s Summerfest season at Artpark.
This is the sixth year the BPO has been in residence at the Lewiston venue, following a decades-long absence.
“Summerfest continues to be a very dynamic part of our season, a rewarding partnership artistically,” says Dan Hart, the Philharmonic’s executive director.
Summerfest, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra's annual season at Artpark, begins Saturday. All events take place in the Artpark Mainstage Theater. Admission is $15 for lawn seats, $28 to $48 for inside seats. Half-price tickets are available for children under 12.
For information on Summerfest, call Artpark at 754-4375, or visit www.artpark.net. . Alternatively, call the BPO box office at 885-5000, or visit www.bpo.org..
For information on the Niagara Wine Trail, visit www.NiagaraWineTrail.org. .
Here is the schedule for Summerfest 2009:
• 8 p.m. Saturday: "Carmina Burana"
•3 p.m. Sunday: "Broadway Rocks"
•2:30 p.m. July 17 and 8 p.m. July 18: The Peking Acrobats
• 8 p.m. July 25: "Opera's Greatest Hits"
•3 p.m. July 26: "Guitar Hero"
• 8 p.m. July 31: "Video Games Live"
• 8 p.m. Aug. 1: "Russian Romantics"
• 3 p.m. Aug. 2: "Music for the Silver Screen"
The upcoming Summerfest also marks the final concerts conducted by resident conductor Robert Franz, who is departing to become music director of the Boise Philharmonic.
Franz is conducting the first two weekends of concerts, with BPO Music Director JoAnn Falletta joining the orchestra at Artpark later in the Summerfest season.
Sunday, he is following Saturday’s “Carmina Burana” with another tumultuous crowd pleaser, “Broadway Rocks.” The Sunday concert, featuring four Broadway singers, is a tribute to modern musicals, including “The Wiz” and “Hairspray.” And next weekend, Franz presides over two performances by the Peking Acrobats, a proven hit in past seasons.
Known for his infectious enthusiasm, Franz is eagerly anticipating all of these events.
“It’s pretty upbeat, hot, definitely rock oriented,” he says of “Broadway Rocks.” Of the Peking Acrobats, he laughs happily. “The music is the ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ variety,” he says.
“I’m so looking forward to all these concerts with the BPO,” he adds, growing serious. “Over the past four years, I have really enjoyed making music with my colleagues here. They play their hearts out. Everyone is there with the same mission.
“I love that sense of performing, sense of purpose,” he says. “That’s always been a huge pleasure to me. They give me everything I ask for and then some. It inspires me to give them everything I possibly can. Together, it’s special music making for sure.”
Building on success
Falletta savors the variety of concerts Summerfest embraces. “What I love about Artpark, it’s such a great mixture of things,” she said. “We get pops, classics, everything in. I’m excited about it all. I think we’ve got a good mix of offerings that will appeal across the board.”
Hart says that every summer season at Artpark, the orchestra takes a creative approach to programming.
“Each year we try to learn something,” he says. “We’re trying to add components that will make the event something better and create a great experience for our audience members.”
With that in mind, the orchestra has begun working with the Buffalo Society of Artists to present 15-minute preconcert talks that point out connections between music and other arts.
And new this summer is a collaboration with the Niagara Wine Trail’s Wine and Culinary Festival, which happens the weekend of July 25 and 26. Before Philharmonic concerts, wineries will be on hand to offer tastings.
“That’s an example of trying to reach further with what we can do at Artpark,” Hart says. “We’re trying to add components that will make the event something better and create a great experience for our audience members.”
The music for the wine festival weekend will be sensuous and festive. On July 25, Falletta conducts an evening of opera arias, featuring Buffalo native Laura Aikin. Aikin, who has starred at the Metropolitan Opera, will be singing music from “Aida,” “La Traviata” and more.
And on July 26, Marco Sartor, winner of the 2008 JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, joins Falletta and the BPO for the lovely “Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquin Rodrigo.
A new vibe takes over on July 31, with “Video Games Live!” a multimedia presentation conducted by guest conductor Jack Wall. This high-tech extravaganza went over big with the younger set in a previous appearance at Kleinhans Music Hall.
“This is a show that Artpark really wanted to do. It’s a direct collaboration between the BPO and Artpark,” Hart says. “The kids really respond to it.”
On Aug. 1, the BPO returns to the kind of lush music that began the season. The 21-year-old pianist Natasha Paremski will be the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, in a concert called “Russian Romantics.” And on Aug. 2, “Music From the Silver Screen” includes the violin concerto by film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, with BPO Concertmaster Michael Ludwig as soloist.
“We did all John Williams last year, and it was such a big hit. And there’s so much great music that led up to his music,” Falletta says. “I want to explore the great classical composers, many of whom came from Europe and established themselves in Hollywood.”
Bound for Boise
Saturday’s “Carmina Burana” sets the tone for the whole season with its over-the-top passion.
“It’s my first time ever conducting it,” says Franz. “I’ve played it many times, as an oboist and as an English horn player. But I’ve never conducted it. You have to figure out how it all fits together. That’s the big challenge, putting together a big piece like this.”
The concert Saturday also includes the “Polovtsian Dances” from Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor.” The dances became the melodies of the musical “Kismet” and, as Franz points out, you don’t hear them performed live with chorus very often.
“I love the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus,” he says. “Everything I have done with them has been so special.”
Is Franz feeling a touch of nostalgia, on the eve of his departure? He admits that, between preparing for Artpark and planning his move, he has had little time to look back.
He is outfitting an apartment in Boise. But his home base will be Columbus, Ohio, because he is music director of the nearby Mansfield Symphony and, he explains, Columbus is centrally located.
“I’m moving some things to Columbus, and some things to Boise,” he says. “The biggest thing about my move is just what state things go to. Where the scores are. Where the planes fly to.”
Franz likes Boise. “It’s like a small Denver, right up against the mountains. It’s really attractive.”
But he adds, excitedly, that he is in the running for a summer job not too far from here. He is one of the finalists for the job of music director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta.
“Hopefully that will bring me into the neighborhood,” he says.
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