ROCO Limited Engagements: Mahler's Fourth

Melissa Givens, soprano

ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra) presents its 10th Anniversary Season Finale, a special chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in the intimate and meditative Rothko Chapel. Led by conductor Alan Yamamoto, the concert features soprano Melissa Givens, Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. In keeping with its 10th Anniversary Season theme of programming works based on literary sources, ROCO presents this arrangement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony for 13 musicians. It features the composer’s setting of “Das himmlische Leben” (“Heavenly Life”), based on text from Des Knaben Wunderforn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), a collection of German folk songs and poems from the 1800s.

This orchestration of Mahler’s symphony was arranged by Erwin Stein, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, and was premiered by the Society for Private Music Performances, a private performance organization founded by Schoenberg and his colleague, Alban Berg. The goal of the Society was to promote performances of modern music for intimate audiences in post-war Vienna. Although the fourth is Mahler’s smallest-scale symphony, “smaller-scale” is a relative term, as Mahler’s symphonies are not intimate compositions, typically scored for very large symphonic forces. Known for her expressiveness and versatility in everything from baroque through 21st-century music, soprano Melissa Givens can be heard in wide-ranging projects such as Pitié!, adapted from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; Sing Freedom!, Conspirare’s 2012 recording of spirituals (Harmonia Mundi label); and Dido in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” with Camerata Ventapane the Baroque Music Festival of San Miguel de Allende.

Ms. Givens has also performed with Grammy®-nominated groups Ars Lyrica Houston and Conspirare, and has recorded a solo CD, let the rain kiss you. Givens is on faculty at Houston Baptist University, and continues to tour both across the nation and internationally. Recent engagements have included performances at home in Houston, Georgia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Inspired by the concept of the Society for Private Performances, Conductor Alan Yamamoto presented the Boulder and New Orleans premieres of Stein’s chamber reduction of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. In the spirit of the historic organization, he has premiered his own chamber arrangements of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder and “Blumine”. Mr. Yamamoto founded and served as Music Director of the Modern Music Festival for five years, as well as serving as the Resident Conductor of both the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder and The Charlotte Symphony. He’s held teaching positions at both the San Francisco and New England Conservatories of Music, and his teachers included Franco Ferrara, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Celibidache, Michael Senturia, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier, and Giora Bernstein.