KELLAMS: This is Ozarks at Large, I'm Kyle Kellams. With me on the phone from Fort Smith is John Jeter, who is the conductor and music director of the Fort Smith Symphony, getting ready for what I think is the one hundred and second season, John.
JETER: That is correct- 102.
KELLAMS: You have not been at all of them, but you've been there for a bit.
JETER: Well, 28 years. A quarter of that time. We’ve got a terrific season. We've talked about the season earlier on, but I think we were going to focus on a few upcoming concerts, I believe.
KELALMS: That is exactly my plan. And that first upcoming concert not that far away- Saturday, September 6, the opener.
JETER: It's called Dance Party because the entire program is full of Symphonic Dances, if you will. We're performing the very famous four dance episodes from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. Or if you want to say rodeo, I think because it's classical music. They have to say it's a rodeo. It's a cowboy ballet. These are dances from the complete ballet. So, “Buckaroo Holiday,” which, of course, everyone knows, “Corral Nocturne.” The Saturday Night Waltz, I think is the most beautiful part of the work. Just absolutely gorgeous.
We switched to Argentinian tango with Astor Piazzolla and his homage Double Concerto for guitar and accordion. Yes, I said that right. We will be featuring Hanzhi Wang as the accordion soloist. She's terrific. And Virginia Luque, who I think you remember.
KELLAMS: Oh, yes. Been here many times.
JETER: On guitar? Yes, been to in the Northwest Arkansas area many, many times. It's been a while.
This is an absolutely gorgeous concerto. It definitely is a tango concerto, your traditional three movement work. Interestingly, the first movement is without orchestra. So, we just get to sit and listen. Then, the is actually string orchestra. It's just a beautiful piece. I think people are going to love it.
Then, we perform three dances from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, “the Montagues and Capulets,” “Tybalt's Death,” and “Romeo and Juliet's Grave.” Those are some of the three most popular works. We close with the “Dance Bacchanale” from the opera Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saens.
So we do that, and then the whole orchestra and audience and our guest artists go across the street to the Bakery District for our after-party, where we have live music and beverages. It's designed to be lots of fun. It's a great first timer concert for people who haven't been to a symphony before. It's not a terribly long concert and they're all kind of short pieces. We're really excited about that. And that is Saturday, September 6.
KELLAMS: Then you turn around seemingly very quickly, less than a month later for Brass Transit, which is an interesting program.
JETER: Yes. I know a lot of people love the music of Chicago, the band Chicago Brass Transit. They're just great. It's the full Chicago band and vocalists and we're with symphony. It’s hard to choose a selection of Chicago hits because they had so many, but this concert, we're going to be performing “Make Me Smile,” “Just You and Me,” “Saturday in the park,” “If You Leave Me Now,” “Searching So Long,” “You're the Inspiration,” “Beginnings,” “Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is,” “Old Days Last,” “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day,” “25 or 6 to 4,” “Colour My World.” I mean, just one piece after another. That is on Saturday, October 4. And, boy, the Brass Transit, they're a great band. They're just terrific.
KELLAMS: For those, you can get tickets. October 6.
The Earquake Concerts at public school with public school students, you cannot get tickets for those. That's for the students only.
JETERL: Yeah. Participating schools only. We’ll have about 2,600 students from all over the Arkansas River Valley and eastern Oklahoma. These students will be bussed in from their schools on Monday morning, October 6. We have a concert at 9 a.m. and another one at 12:30 p.m.
These are our annual, school concerts, full orchestra concerts. These are for fifth grade students. We have a student art gallery in the lobby of the concert hall before the concert begins. All of these students, or most all of them, have had the opportunity to create artwork in their art classes based on the music that we're performing. So, they've already had a chance to sort of live with the music a little bit.
We have a new work doing it. We're doing a world premiere performance just for our students. We commissioned a new work by a composer named Chris Prather. We're doing music from Top Gun, Wagner's “Prelude to Act Three,” from Lohengrin, music from Wicked, Jurassic Park, The Greatest Showman, Gladiator, and then we're closing with “Finlandia” of Sibelius.
For that piece, “Finlandia,” we are being joined by students from the North Side and South Side Band and Orchestra program students who were All-State students last year. These are great concerts. We've been doing it for a long time. We do them in fifth grade to help promote students signing up for orchestra, band and choir which begins in their schools in sixth grade. The big message is to get involved in something creative.
KELLAMS: So, the season begins again on Saturday, September 6 at 7 p.m. with a Dance Party with our best, Hanzhi Wang, on accordion. When was the last time you had an accordion with the symphony?
JETER: Oh, never.
KELLAMS: I love it.
JETER: You know, actually, I think we did a concert about music from Paris in the 1920s and 30s- I think we might have had an accordion soloist. Of course, for Piazzola and Argentinian tango music, it's the instrument. That and guitar.
It's just great. She's fantastic. She's making her career as a solo classical accordionist. Think about it. Think how hard that is. And she's doing it because she's just terrific.
KELLAMS: You can find out about these performances as well as the rest of the season at their website. John and I will talk about other performances as the season continues. John, always great to talk with you.
JETER: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
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