Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season November-December 2015 | Page 10

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AU S L A N D

A HUGE AND DIVERSE
CAST OF TALENT
TAKES TO THE STAGE
TO OFFER SOMETHING
FOR EVERYONE.

One of the exciting things about the holiday is the gifts, and like the season’s
brightly wrapped packages, this year’s holiday performances at the
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall are perfect presents—with no returns necessary.

T

he season kicks off when there are
still Thanksgiving leftovers in the
fridge with the 15th anniversary
concert performance by Soulful
Symphony on November 27 and
28. Led by founder and artistic director
Darin Atwater, Soulful Symphony blends
high art and folk art.
“We’ve taken American roots music —
everything from blues, gospel, jazz, and
soul— and framed it around the symphony
orchestra,” Atwater says. “The Soulful
Symphony experience is hearing American
culture wrapped in symphonic music in a
way you might otherwise not expect.”
Soul singer Ledisi will be featured in a
performance that will include orchestral
versions of Duke Ellington, a gospel set,
and Atwater’s Emmy-award-winning

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original composition, “Song in a Strange
Land.” Soulful Symphony is embarking on
an educational outreach program for high
school students and hopes to have a selection of its aspiring young artists on stage for
a song in November’s performance.
The BSO and Soulful Symphony have
a longstanding history. In 2004, Soulful
Symphony became an artistic affiliate of
the BSO, entering into a five-year residency
that broadened the audience for Soulful
Symphony, raised their artistic profile, and
exposed BSO concertgoers to new forms of
orchestral music.
“The impact we’ve been able to make in
Baltimore and across the country, thanks
to our association with the BSO, has been
beyond significant for us,” says Atwater.
“The relationship we’ve had is a great

model for how the high-art cultural
community can be made accessible to
a wider musical community.”
In December, the holidays heat up with
a performance of Handel’s Messiah led by
Concert Artists of Baltimore artistic director Edward Polochick. Polochick throws
modesty out the window with the glee of
a kid on Christmas eve when he promises:
“I can guarantee that this is going to be the
most exciting Messiah performance ever,
which is wonderful since it’s the BSO’s
100th anniversary.”
Messiah is one of the few works that has
been performed at least once a year since
it was written in 1742, making it perhaps
one of the most recognizable pieces of
classical music. Polochick himself has been
performing it with the BSO since 1982.
Handel must have written Messiah in
a creative frenzy—it was completed in
barely three weeks. Revisions over the
centuries have caused the oratorio to grow
more grandiose than perhaps Handel
intended. “But I think he would have loved
it,” says Polochik.
For his performance, Polochick created
a version of Messiah that is considerate of
baroque traditions and conventions of the
time, with tighter segues between movements and a rigorous tempo. Polochick,
who will be playing harpsichord in addition to conducting, says the result will be
a dramatic tour de force that is exuberant
and fresh.
“There are very few pauses, so it becomes
a bit breathless to the listener. And you
don’t have time to lose attention in the
performance because the drama and music
you forward,” he explains.