January 20, 2025

JAN 22: Daniela Candillari conducts a special Orchestral Performance concert featuring students alongside faculty members

Conductor Daniela Candillari speaks with us about this special concert that features MSM Orchestral Performance (OP) students, faculty members, with the concertmaster David Chan, the Head of the OP program — who is also the concertmaster for the MET Opera Orchestra.

“Getting to hear such talented young musicians play this passionate and exciting music alongside seasoned professionals is a unique opportunity to experience something new,” says Daniela Candillari who is the Principal Conductor at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

Read our interview with Daniela, below:

JAN 22 | WED
7:30 PM

ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCE PROGRAM

OPUS130

Featuring MSM OP students and faculty members

Daniela Candillari, Conductor

ANNA CLYNE (MM ’05), This Midnight Hour
BEDŘICH SMETANA Die Moldau
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27

MSM Orchestral Performance students and faculty members take a bow in January 2024

MSM: Tell us about this concert, what are you looking forward to about it?

Daniela: I’m really looking forward to performing this program with everyone. We have a very nice arch of three stylistically different pieces, each with its own challenges and all of them also have an incredible narrative. Preparing for this concert and working with everyone was really special, and I think that energy always comes through in the performance.

Can you tell us about the program? One of the pieces is written by an alumna of MSM, Anna Clyne

Daniela: This Midnight Hour by Anna Clyne has been on my list of pieces to program for quite a while now. Anna Clyne is a great composer and this particular piece is quickly becoming a regular part of the concert programs around the world. The textures that she creates within the orchestra are imaginative, and the idea behind the piece is a combination of two poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez and Charles Baudelaire. It has a very energetic opening and those episodes are woven in with incredibly poetic and almost mystical sections.

Moldau is, of course, a long time favorite of audiences and players. It’s an incredibly descriptive piece and I just love the simplicity of the orchestration in the very opening, that leads into all of the strings joining in and supporting the melody played by the violins and the oboe. It’s a piece with so many different musical characters and because of the imaginative use of every section in the orchestra one can almost see every single scene played out.

The last piece is one of my personal favorites, Symphony No. 2 by Rachmaninoff. He had such a great way of conveying pure and raw emotion. There is so much passion, excitement and nostalgia in his music.The writing for the strings is incredibly connected and lush. The pairing of a rhythmical motive in the first movement between violas, French horn and bass is an incredible color. The way that he would use individual wind instruments to highlight a moment is just beautiful.

As someone who grew up listening a lot to orthodox church choirs, I love how he translated that sound into the orchestra with brass writing and one of my favorite moments is in the final movement with this gorgeous brass choral that is majestic and powerful.

Conductor Daniela Candillari

This concert will feature MSM students performing with 10 MSM Orchestral Performance program faculty members – what makes this extraordinary for you and for the musicians taking part? Can you tell us a bit about the level of talent at MSM?

Daniela: The level of talent at MSM is very high and it’s always fun getting to create an ensemble together. Of course this is a very special project, where students are also joined by the wonderful faculty. It gives the students a chance to experience what it means to perform on a bigger stage, what that means for the projection of the instruments, what it means to play with a section and how it all comes together. Orchestral music is chamber music on a larger scale, and for the students to have that experience sitting next to world class players is just incredible and very unique.

Why do you feel people should come to hear this performance?

Daniela: Getting to hear such talented young musicians play this passionate and exciting music alongside seasoned professionals is a unique opportunity to experience something new.

Head of the OP Program David Chan and concertmaster of the MET Opera Orchestra (standing) takes a bow at last years faculty-student OP concert in Neidorff-Karpati Hall.

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