Kyle Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. Guess who's with me? Well, I'll just tell you. With me in the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio is John Jeter, who is the music director and conductor of the Fort Smith Symphony. Skyfall was in April. Yeah, that was pretty fun. That closed the season?
Jeter: Yes, exactly. Exactly. It was wonderful. Great score. You kind of — it's not like a super well-known score, like for Star Wars or — but just terrific. And when we did it in concert, it's typical James Bond movie, there's a lot of action, right? And I think the music was just more prominent in this way. You heard it more. And a really awesome score. Loads of fun. And the audience loved it. Orchestra did a great job. We love doing it. Orchestra loves doing it too. So everyone, it's a win-win. So I think that's kind of the plan for the coming years is to end the season with a movie.
Kellams: Well, before you end the next season, let's talk about beginning the next season.
Jeter: Okay. All right. It's our 103rd season. It's called Dazzling Debuts. And basically we have amazing guest artists. So with my fortunate — I don't know what you want to call it — involvements with the Grammys. This is not in an official capacity. I mean, I'm a voter, and I was thrilled to be nominated this past year. I'm at events. I've listened to folks — I meet, I get to meet a lot of people and see and hear amazing Grammy-nominated, Grammy-winning artists. So of course, I want to have them come to perform at the Fort Smith Symphony, and they want to come and perform with us. So we have the best season of guest artists you're going to find anywhere, anywhere. So I'm very happy. I'm very happy to discuss it. I'm also usually always very enthusiastic and I am this time, but I'm kind of a little more laid back about it. I was like, hey, man, this is like — it's not going to get any better than this. Right?
Kellams: Right.
Jeter: So our season-opening concert, which is our — I would say our one traditional concert, is on Saturday, September 12th, and that features a wonderful pianist named Han Chen. And he was the other nominee on the recording project that I did. Fantastic pianist performing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, a beautiful piece, and will be performing Dvořák's Seventh Symphony, which is maybe my favorite of his nine symphonies. It's a very — it's the whole symphony, very romantic, very Dvořák-like, Brahms-like, but very rooted in dance. So it has this wonderful, just propulsive feel that goes through the whole work.
On Saturday, Oct. 3 is Mythologies. The composer is Danaë Xanthe Vlasse. She's a wonderful composer who wrote music for two Mythologies recordings that were released in the last what would be like five or six years. The first Mythologies won a Grammy in the Best Classical Vocal category. Mythologies II was nominated for a Grammy. This is — could be described — it's a challenging one to describe. It's contemporary opera, sort of, with narration. There's a huge part for solo piano. It kind of has a very crossover tonal feel to it. I don't think anything has ever quite been programmed like this in our listening area. All of the artists, all the soloists, they're all Grammy-winning artists. They're fabulous. They're the best singers you're going to hear anywhere. I — come on, come on, come on. Robert Thies, who's our piano soloist, he's the go-to studio pianist in Hollywood. I mean, this is going to be absolutely fantastic. Yes, it's kind of different, but — well, for one thing, if people are interested, you can just get online and listen to, you know, Vlasse Mythologies and get an idea. It's very exciting music. Beautiful. Very dramatic. I think it'll be — I don't know if it's going to be exactly semi-staged, but we'll have these really cool costumes and it's going to be a really cool evening. Nothing like it. Very, very big city, very awesome, very Grammy. Just packed.
So to give a little more backstory, this is — with all of the success of the recordings, this is actually the world premiere live performance of this.
Kellams: Really? Congratulations.
Jeter: Yeah, exactly. So we're trying to — and as a result of this, they've been able to talk to other orchestras about it. So there's going to be multiple performances. So what we're in the process now is trying to decide what we want to do here, and especially how much of that other stuff, the non-music stuff, we want to do, because they have to think about replicating it with another orchestra. And, you know, what other orchestras are going to do. So I think we'll probably possibly err on the side of more of a traditional concert format, but I'm not really sure yet, because what we want to help them do is, okay, here's — you've done this in the studio. It's been, you know, broadcast and streamed all over the world. Here are some practical applications with doing this in a concert hall.
Christmas. Our Christmas concert is always super popular. It's always just a little different each year. This one is Christmas in Maui with Kalani Pe'a. Kalani is an awesome four-time Grammy-winning Hawaiian artist vocalist, coolest guy on the planet, amazing singer. This is his first mainland performance of his Christmas symphony show. And he is just — I mean, it's a combination of traditional holiday favorites and Hawaiian Islands music.
Then our next concert is on Saturday, March 6th. So it's called The Revelations Recording Project. So on the first half of the program, Andy DeBoer, who is our wonderful principal clarinetist, he will be playing a concerto by a Spanish composer named Oscar Navarro. This is probably the coolest work for clarinet and orchestra I've ever heard. It's like a little bit of Gustav Mahler, John Williams, Hans Zimmer. There's even some flamenco thrown in because Navarro is a Spanish composer, and this was on Andy's — and many clarinetists' — it's like, this is the one piece we always want to perform. And like, it's really hard. I guess since it's not well known, people — orchestras maybe don't want to program it. Awesome piece. So that's going to be a really cool experience for people to listen to.
And then on the second half, we are featuring our composer in residence, which is a whole other discussion. Patrick Conlon, who's going to be premiering his Second Symphony. It's called Remission. And Patrick has been a long-time member of the orchestra as a performer, composer and engineer. He and his creative partner, Christina Giacona, have been working — have worked on a number of Grammy-nominated projects, quite a few — I think even five nominated projects last year. They were like the engineers on it. So we're doing this second symphony. And then for the two days after the concert, Fort Smith Symphony is doing another big recording project. And it's all music of Patrick Conlon. So we're doing his two symphonies and his double concerto for violin and clarinet. It's called Wub Wub Wub. It's an EDM. Yes, EDM. Yeah. And then also he wrote a work for the — oh, I think it was the 75th or 100th anniversary of ArcBest, and that's going to be on the recording also. And Patrick said to me — I didn't even think about it — is we've actually, Fort Smith Symphony has commissioned all of these works. So it's going to be released on Divine Art Records, which is an amazing independent label. It's actually 10 labels and they're distributed by Naxos Records. And yeah, it's a pretty, pretty exciting project. Again, it's like so cool to be able to be doing this again.
So we've got that in March. And how thrilling for Patrick.
Kellams: Yeah. I mean, just how thrilling. Yeah.
Jeter: Yeah. He's yeah, he's been wonderful. So we've done — we've performed the First Symphony, we did a few years ago, the concerto we've done actually on a classical concert. We've also done movements of it at our schools concerts because it's very, you know, rock style. So what we're going to do throughout the season is we're going to try to sneak in some of his other pieces. So then we have everything pretty much rehearsed. I got fashion for another, and then we have the 12 hours of recording time afterwards.
So, you know, how do you end a season like that? I don't know. So how about — it's April 24th. Is Top Gun: Maverick in concert? Thank you very much. So that'll be the music of — yeah.
Kellams: That's the second Top Gun movie?
Jeter: Exactly, exactly. So Harold Faltermeyer is one of the composers, Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe, Lady Gaga — it's a very mixed kind of a soundtrack, actually. And we're super thrilled to do that. As many people know, in the River Valley, we do have the very significant and rapidly growing foreign military sales mission. So the idea is to have involvement with — have all those pilots and aircrew come out to the concert, as they have actually been doing for so many of the concerts. And we even had Colonel Nick ID, who's the group commander, he got to be a guest conductor in March. So he got to do — it was a really fun experience. And we have so many of those families come to the concerts and come to the after parties. We'll have after parties after all these concerts at the Bakery District. Those have been going great. Digs, which is the bar and restaurant there, has been hosting those. They're amazing. It's a great place to go and eat, but they've been super amazing with these after parties.
And then in addition to that, of course, we will be doing all of our schools programs and Earquakes. So we'll be reaching about 8,000 students as we did this year.
So, as of the time that you and I are talking — I'm not sure when this is airing exactly — but I think we've been announcing — we announced the season like maybe 10 days ago. What was the week of Skyfall? So was it last week? Two weeks ago? And year-to-date comparison, we're way ahead on season ticket sales. There's a lot of interest. We had really great season ticket sales last year. So it's very, very exciting.
Kellams: Obviously, whatever we do, we have limited resources, limited ability, limited time. And so you can't have a 30-concert season, obviously. Yes. But whenever you're thinking about the 104th, 105th season, is there ever that little thing in your head? Man, I wish we could do — well, taking the work out of it.
Jeter: Well, you know, I've always been a less-is-more kind of person. I'd rather do, you know, X number of jam-packed concerts than — I think I've been referencing a real small brochure that we mailed out. I think the brochure looks so awesome that when you get to Top Gun, it's like, almost you need like, maybe there should be one other concert on there or something like that.
I also — we all forgot about this and I didn't even think about it — but this is also my 30th season.
Kellams: Oh, wow.
Jeter: So I didn't even — actually, it was because I just miscounted. I thought it was my 29th. You know, you get to a point where it's like — I was gonna say like, yeah, whatever. Nothing is more indicative of being somewhere for a while than that you miscount how long you've been there. So, and I mean, the fact that we're getting to do another recording — I think I mentioned to you, there's a lot of interest from a lot of people to record with the orchestra. I've had a lot — I've spent a lot of time with people recently who've reached out and say, hey, I'm interested in this project. You know, would you all be available? Unfortunately, I send most of the work over to Europe because it's just so much cheaper to have an orchestra there, and we have to sort of fit it into our season with limited concerts. And I think based on some really amazing opportunities that have presented themselves, that's the one challenge with doing a five or six concert season is, you know, I do have to pick and choose. It's like, oh, this project's right here and I'd love to do it. And I have to limit my choices.
Kellams: Right. Where can people find out more?
Jeter: Fortsmithsymphony.org. We are selling season tickets, people. We're still in the renewal phase. So people who have not renewed their tickets, they still have some time. So actually their seats are still being held. But you can go on and, you know, pick other seats. And yeah, we're real excited and there's a lot of interest in the season. You can't do any better musically anywhere. So come and check us out.
Kellams: John, thanks always.
Jeter: Thank you, thank you.
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