Team work makes the dream work
ALBANY — Collaboration takes center stage as RPI’s Rensselaer Orchestra and the Empire State Youth Orchestra join forces for the second consecutive year in a side-by-side performance.
With two concerts scheduled for Sunday, March 30, and Saturday, April 5, the ensembles will explore the evocative theme of “Fluid Realities,” featuring two student soloists who represent their joint mission of inspiring the next generation of musical talent.
“Each year we try to build on the previous year and push the boundaries on what we’re doing for the students on a musical, technical level as well as on an expressive level,” said Dr. Robert Whalen, director of Institute Ensembles at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The collaboration will feature a performance of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” an expressive, dreamlike piece interwoven with Berlioz’s unrequited infatuation with actress Harriet Smithson.
“The symphony effectively tells the story of Berlioz’s fascination with her,” explained Whalen.
“It lives up to its title of being a fantastical journey from beginning to end, especially at the end where it’s an incredibly wild ride,” he added. “It defies expectations.”
“The music really has a sense of shifting reality, very sudden mood changes, warped rhythms, and eerie otherworldly orchestrations that all sort of contribute to a sense of a mind that is untethered from reality,” described ESYO Symphony Orchestra conductor Etienne Abelin.
In addition to “Symphonie Fantastique,” the combined orchestras will perform Samy Moussa’s “Elysium.” Abelin described the “extraordinary, wide landscapes” in the piece that allow the audience to “have a sense of vastness and transcendence in a sound world where boundaries get lost between earthly and otherworldly.”
“You’re really shifting between an Elysium, a celestial grandeur that is different from the Berlioz,” he observed.
“It’s an extraordinarily beautiful new work for a large orchestra,” said Whalen. “It does some very interesting metamorphoses of chords and tonality; it almost feels like you’re looking at the music through a kaleidoscope… It’s an unbelievably good piece of music. For people who may be a little hesitant to try new things when it comes to classical music, this is the piece!”
The Sunday, March 30, concert at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall will also feature ESYO’s 2025 Lois Lyman Concerto Competition winner, Abi Norsworthy, performing Schumann’s “Cello Concerto in A Minor.”
“Winning the Lois Lyman Concerto Competition is an incredible honor, and I am beyond excited to perform Schumann’s ‘Cello Concerto’ with ESYO,” said Norsworthy. “This piece is deeply expressive and full of emotion, and I can’t wait to share it with the audience.”
“It is a really wonderful piece that is introspective. It’s dreamlike; it has a lot of shifting moods and delicate transitions between sections, between light and shadows,” said Abelin.
With ESYO’s overarching theme of the year being “Flow,” the concept is reflected in the collaboration. “The movements are seamlessly linked, and they create this sense of uninterrupted flow,” he added.
At the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) on Saturday, April 5, RPI oboist Gianna Scire will perform Thomas L. Read’s “Oboe Concerto.” Scire is one of the winners of RPI’s annual concerto competition.
Her performance of Read’s “Oboe Concerto” also provides audiences with a unique opportunity to hear a New England-based composer, as Read is a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont.
Whalen expressed enthusiasm about the EMPAC venue. “If you have not been in EMPAC, and if you’re not maybe familiar with what the sound of EMPAC is, especially with a full orchestra, this is an amazing opportunity to check this out,” he said.
“Having our high school students experience EMPAC at RPI was a mind-blowing experience for many of them,” said Abelin. “Many had never been there, and they just loved the concert hall. The acoustics in that space are so extraordinary.”
Both music directors are already preparing for next year’s concert, with a sprawling Gustav Mahler piece in mind.
“It’s an amazing piece, impossible for us to pull off at this moment alone,” said Abelin. “But when we join the orchestras, we can do it.”
Seeing the benefits of the collaboration between the two institutions is what inspired the creation of the program and motivates its continuation.
“I know that the RPI students are inspired by the musicianship and the energy that the ESYO students bring, and hopefully the Rensselaer students can be not only good musical colleagues but also potential mentors where these relationships can live on beyond just meeting for rehearsals and concerts,” said Whalen.
