Kyle Kellams: Grammy nominations in 95 categories, from Best Children’s Album to Record of the Year, were announced this week. This music is from one of the nominated pieces.
(“Piano Concerto in One Movement in D Minor” plays.)
This was composed by Arkansas native Florence Price in 1933. It’s her “Piano Concerto in One Movement in D Minor.” Conducting the Malmö Opera Orchestra, and Han Chen, piano, is John Jeter, the music director and conductor of the Fort Smith Symphony. The recording on Naxos earned the Grammy nomination this week, and we asked John Jeter to come to the Carver Center for Public Radio to talk about the recording, his nomination and what’s still yet to come this season for the Fort Smith Symphony.
I’ve probably done, I don’t know, 10,000 interview intros, but I think this is going to be one of my favorites ever. I am speaking with Grammy-nominated John Jeter.
John Jeter: Hello, Kyle.
Kellams: Hello! This is fantastic.
Jeter: Thank you.
Kellams: Yeah.
Jeter: Thank you. I agree, I agree.
Kellams: So first of all, the category is
Jeter: Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
Kellams: Right.
Jeter: Yes. And it is for — that category is for concertos. So there’s a soloist, orchestra, conductor. Also if someone — if a solo instrumentalist, just like one person, or if it’s like a, you know, a soloist and pianist. So it is for the recording of Florence Price’s “Piano Concerto.” The pianist is Han Chen, the orchestra is the Malmö Opera Orchestra of Sweden. This was recorded, I guess, about a year ago on the Naxos label. It’s part of a Florence Price recorded cycle of her music that I’ve been working on for a long time. That started in Fort Smith with the Fort Smith Symphony, has remained on Naxos and — terrific.
Kellams: Where was this recorded?
Jeter: In Malmö, Sweden, at — yeah, the Malmö Opera. I was there for two weeks. I did this — this album is actually a collection of Florence Price’s concertos. So it has two violin concertos on it with Fanny Clamagirand, a terrific violinist, the Price “Piano Concerto” with Han Chen, an amazing pianist, and “Dances in the Canebrakes,” which are — were piano pieces written by Florence Price, orchestrated by William Grant Still.
So I forget the order. But I did this recording in Malmö for a week, and then a second week was — I forget which order it is — but the second week was Price choral music album. That also was really well received. We’ve gotten a lot of really wonderful reviews on both projects.
Kellams: Tell me about Han Chen.
Jeter: He’s terrific.
Kellams: He looks young.
Jeter: He’s — he’s — he’s not as young as he looks, but he looks like he’s very young.
Kellams: Yes.
Jeter: Terrific pianist and just super guy. As easy to work with as you could possibly imagine. Very musical. Very technically — you know, a wonderful player. Very warm. Super accommodating. I mean, he has terrific musical ideas, but also understands that, you know, in a concerto situation or chamber music or whatever, it’s collaborative.
He — I think he enjoys, you know, bringing what he can do to the table and then sort of putting it in the mix. I will do a spoiler alert that he is going to perform with Fort Smith Symphony next season. But I had set that up months ago. So that is something about next season. So it’s great. It’s great. And now that he’s Grammy — nominated, it also ties into a very big thing with us next season. Actually, the next few seasons. I’m just — I’m just throwing that out there.
Kellams: Okay.
Jeter: We’ll talk about it more later.
Kellams: Okay.
Jeter: Yeah.
Kellams: Do you have memories of the session? It was only a year ago, but can you close your eyes and remember what it was like?
Jeter: Yeah. It was — it was a rough two weeks, actually, because my experience with Florence Price, as great as it is, there’s a challenge with her music. We’ve talked about that before. Not in the case — fortunately the “Piano Concerto” gets performed a lot now, and there is a real nice recent edition, critical edition. But a lot of her music that I’ve done over the years have been world-premiere recordings.
So there was a lot in that two-week period — all the choral music. There were two really big world premieres on there. So it was a week of — I enjoyed it, but it has to be right. It all has to be correct, of course. And you would feel that way if you’re doing Beethoven or Brahms. But with Price, there was always the challenge of making sure the music was accurate, there weren’t mistakes in it. I spent a lot of time correcting those errors. But things would still crop up.
Or I know with one project I wasn’t — I essentially couldn’t see the performing materials in advance. That’s a whole other story. So you get in a session and think, oh my gosh, this is totally — you know, I had some huge things and some things you’re fixing on the spot, and then some other things you have to go back and it has to get corrected.
Kellams: So it’s a concerto. The nominated concerto is almost 17 minutes long.
Jeter: Yeah. It’s in three movements.
Kellams: Right.
Jeter: But it’s in one — it says it’s “Piano Concerto in One Movement,” but it actually is three distinct movements. But you go from the first movement to the second movement pretty directly, and there’s a little bit of a pause, and then there’s the really fun Juba-inspired third movement.
(Song plays.)
Just talking about the music, it is a terrific piece. It is a great substitute for Rhapsody in Blue, which I’d love to see more because it’s Price, of course — we all know, you know, American composer, first African American female concert composer, born and raised in Arkansas. And it’s a terrific piece.
The first movement is very romantic, piano-concerto-ish. Beautiful, lyrical second movement. And then Price wrote a lot of Juba dances. They’re kind of like her scherzos in classical music. Juba dance is a slave dance. And some people might know what a hambone is. Hambone dance, you know, where you're just using your body — body percussion.
So it was a dance where there was really no instruments available, and a joyous dance, but there’s always, of course, some sorrow there with that whole history, with slavery. But she kind of — she kind of took it to this new level.
Kellams: So you’ve been to the Grammys before?
Jeter: A couple times.
Kellams: Since you’re a voter, but this time you’ll be a nominee. I’m sure you’ll be tuxedoed up.
Jeter: Yeah, well, I won’t tuxedo- usually- I mean, I’ll be a little hipper than that.
Kellams: Oh, okay.
Jeter: I’ll probably do — I think the last couple of years, I’ve been, like, all black. Like a black suit, black shirt, black tie, something like. I haven’t really decided.
They’re fun to do. The premiere — so basically, you know, the day of the event, there’s this premiere ceremony that happens. Oh, I forget — the main ceremony, the one we see, is at the Crypto Arena in LA. And then there’s a big — I don't remember the name of it. There’s another huge facility right near there. And the premiere event is terrific.
They always have a fantastic band there. They’re like the best — the best LA freelancers. And I remember the first year that I was there, that was the high point because, you know, they’ll announce something and then there’s the music, the live music that is needed to fill the time as someone is walking up to the stage. And it’s great.
They picked every cool piece of music, pop music you could play. They would play it. They’d start exactly. And, you know, the leader of the group would give just this slight cutoff when someone got up to the podium, and it was exact and very cool arrangements.
Then they also are — they also give the you’re-out-of-time cue. They’ll start playing again. And then there will be some performers that will perform, kind of. Because at the premiere events — I don’t remember — I think they present like 80 awards.”
Kellams: Yeah. Because it’s everything that’s not on the prime time.
Jeter: Exactly, exactly. And even some of the prime-time people, if they’re in some other categories that are maybe a little more obscure, they’ll be there.
Kellams: Yeah.
Jeter: But it’s everything. I mean, it’s classical and heavy metal.
Kellams: Children’s; spoken word.
Jeter: Children’s; spoken word. New age is a big category. So you get to see a lot of people.
And I’ve done — and, you know, going the last few years, there are also a lot of events that either labels or groups of independent people will do. So you get to meet a lot of people. And as cool as it is to be talking about being nominated — yay — you know, I have to say the high point is I’ve gotten to know terrific musicians personally and musicians in all different genres.
It has been great to not only hear these people but to talk to them about ideas. And perhaps for us in this listening area, the most important thing to say is people are going to be able to hear and see the results of this because being there — of course I have ulterior motives — you know, I want all these people to come to Fort Smith to perform.
Kellams: Right.
Jeter: And I have — I will say this, this is my only big-headed moment — the list of people who are interested in coming and performing at the Fort Smith Symphony is unbelievable.
Kellams: That’s fantastic.
Jeter: Because if you’re a crossover artist, you’re a jazz artist, if you're a country, you don’t get to play with a symphony orchestra very much.
Kellams: No.
Jeter: So we’ve got a really interesting thing that we’ve been able to get — well, again, I want to save this for later.
Kellams: Sure.
Jeter: But it’s just — I’ve been working on trying to make sure that our community and the listening area can really take advantage of this. And we will be doing some things starting next year that really no one — no orchestra — is doing.
We have a Christmas concert coming up.
Kellams: Please tell me about it.
Jeter: And we are sold out.
But Emily and Patti Drennan are our guest artists. They just got nominated for their first Grammys. And then we have a wonderful longtime second clarinetist, Christina Giacona, who’s a wonderful clarinetist, recording engineer, producer, composer, and Patrick Conlon, who’s our principal second violin, engineer, composer. And they were the engineers on three nominated albums.
Kellams: Wow.
Jeter: So which is very cool.
Kellams: Wow.
Jeter: So yeah, this is all kind of — there’s a lot of strategy going into this in terms of what we want to try to do in Fort Smith. And we’ve been able to — you know, again, recording — very few orchestras our size are recording, especially with this degree of regularity. And it’s because people have been real supportive of it. And Naxos has been great too. If we can’t do it in Fort Smith, they’ll send me overseas.”
Kellams: That’s the label.
Jeter: Naxos Records, yeah. And it’s just been a really cool experience. So there’s that.
Then we do all of our in-school programs. January, February, we’ll go to about 80 schools with our jazz quartet and our bluegrass quartet and our string quartet. That’s January, February.
March — oh, I think it’s the 6 — is our Water Planet. The Water Planet. So The Moldau, Handel’s Water Music and La Mer. And then the next month is Skyfall, the James Bond Skyfall, which will be great. And that will sell out for sure.
We’ve had — I haven’t talked to you — yeah, our season ticket numbers, we’re way ahead of what we expected. We were optimistic, and the ticket sales have just been amazing.
Kellams: That’s great.
Jeter: Yeah. So it’s — everything’s real positive.
Kellams: And I know you can’t tell me anything, but you’ve already got 2026–27 season-
Jeter: I gave you the one hint.
Kellams: Yeah, well, I shouldn’t say, “You can’t tell me anything.” You can’t tell me much.
Jeter: No.
Kellams: Other than it's going to be amazing.
Jeter: I can tell you everything when the microphones are turned off.
Kellams: Yeah. I don’t know if I want to know, though, if I can’t tell people.
Jeter:“No, it’s — yeah, it’s — we always kind of think long range. So there’s just really, really interesting things happening. So yeah, I’m excited about it.
Kellams; All right. February 1, the Grammy ceremony.
Jeter: Yes. Yes.
Kellams: Of course you’ve got to have your thank-yous ready.
Jeter: Yeah, I’m not going to.
Kellams: Look, look, look, look. No, I’m not trying to put the cart before the horse. But you don’t want to go up there — I wouldn’t want to go up there with nothing planned.
Well, actually
Kellams: That’s not ego, that’s just.
Jeter: I know. So if we’re going to talk about this.
Kellams: I’m just saying.
Jeter: No, no, no, no, no. Yes. But no, because I think — I think the soloist should take center stage.
Kellams: I’ve got you.
Jeter: So if I go up there I’m going to say, ‘Han, you’re going to talk.
Kellams:
Jeter: And he’s going, ‘Oh my God.’ So — and they don’t give you a ton of time.
Kellams: I know.
Jeter: And a lot of times someone will talk, and then, like, someone else usually will start to go to the microphone — the second person — and the music sounds like, okay. So I’m absolutely fine. And I have no — you know, I mean, I’m hoping for the best, but I am totally happy.
Kellams: And that’s why social media exists. You can always thank people.
Jeter: Sure, sure.
Jeter: And as we were saying, you know, this is one of those things where it’s this — it’s an interesting thing because it will kind of follow me.
Kellams: Yes.
Jeter: So probably every time we’re on the show, every time I get interviewed or anything in writing, it’s — yes. It’s like a new title.
Kellams: Yeah. Embrace that. Embrace that.
Jeter: I am. I am.
Kellams: Okay. All right. John Jeter, thank you so much.
Jeter: Thank you.
John Jeter is the music director and conductor of the Fort Smith Symphony. He came to the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio earlier this week.
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