Santa Barbara Symphony Presents Mozart & Mahler During November Symphony Concert Week

“It is an incredible coincidence that brings Anya to collaborate with the Symphony,” said Santa Barbara Symphony Music and Artistic Director Nir Kabaretti. “Schedules, repertoire and voice all had to come together as we searched for a replacement soprano to perform with the Symphony this weekend. My attention was captured by Ms. Matanovič for a number of reasons, first, she has the type of virtuosic voice and fast coloratura needed for the Mozart, and also for the boy’s magic horn ‘heavenly life’ for the Mahler,” said Kabaretti. “Her schedule aligned with our rehearsals and performances, and, as I discovered recently, Anya just so happens to live in downtown Santa Barbara!“ American soprano Anya Matanovič was engaged by the Symphony late last week to replace Croatian soprano Lana Kos, who cancelled her engagement due to illness.

Mozart wrote the joyous and virtuosic motet Exsultate, Jubilate in appreciation for Roman castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, as thanks for his debut performance of Mozart’s opera Lucio Silla. This delightful work, whose text is religious but not part of the regular liturgy, is a brilliant showpiece that was tailored to Rauzzini’s considerable vocal talents. The opening movement supports Alfred Einstein’s evaluation that this work is a “vocal concerto.” The finale, based on the single word Alleluja, is one of the most delightful and familiar movements from Mozart’s sacred pieces, and it provides a luminous ending to this wonderful work of the sixteen-year-old Salzburg prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Julia Wolfe composed Fuel for Strings in 2007 as a joint project with filmmaker Bill Morrison. The collaboration was the result of a commission from the European string orchestra Ensemble Resonanz. Wolfe took the request and the result is high-intensity music that explodes to life, taking the audience on a white-hot musical ride throughout its 20 minutes. The music is a perfect correlative to Morrison’s film depicting time-lapse vistas of busy waterfronts which will accompany the Santa Barbara Symphony’s performance of this great contemporary work. Bill Morrison has collaborated with some of the most influential composers and performers of our time, including John Adams, Philip Glass, Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich, and Julia Wolfe.

Of her composition Fuel for Strings, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe wrote, “The idea for Fuel began in conversation with filmmaker Bill Morrison. We talked about the mystery and economy of how things run — the controversy and necessity of fuel — the global implications, the human need. The music takes its inspiration from the fiery strings of Ensemble Resonanz. The members of the group challenged me to write something rip-roaring and virtuosic, asking me to push them to the limit. This request merged with the sounds of transport and harbors — New York and Hamburg — large ships, creaking docks, whistling sounds, and a relentless energy.”

Warm and lyrical, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony combines deliberate simplicity with a wealth of invention. It is also the most modest in length and orchestra size of his ten, and was composed during a time that Mahler was very interested in the folk traditions of Germany as they were set down in an early-19th-century anthology of poems titled “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (“The Youth’s Magic Horn”). Mahler’s interest in these simple peasant verses infused a sense of innocence and child-like simplicity into the heart of his Fourth Symphony. The entire mood and structure of this symphony was built to lead to the finale which exudes a beauty, calm and simplicity that place the performance of this work among the most pacific moments in all of music.