This coming Monday, October 5th, the University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will be performing Rimsky-Korsakov's “Scheherazade” in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center under the direction of its new conductor, Jessica Morel.
Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani recently spoke with University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra conductor Jessica Morel about the performance, her career in music and her path to conducting at the University of Arkansas.
Jessica Morel is originally from California, but her conducting career has taken her across the country. Arkansas is the seventh state she’s lived in.
“In the last ten years, I've had a lot of different experiences as a college orchestra director, youth orchestra director, and also as an assistant conductor for professional orchestra. And I had a lot of guest conducting gigs.
I was in high school when I really developed a love for orchestral music, like being in an orchestra. And there was just one day where my orchestra director said, ‘I need to go to the office, who would like to conduct?’ And without even missing a beat, without even thinking about it, I just rose my hand. I said, ‘I want to conduct’.
There's something inside me that, like, I felt like I wanted to inspire the people around me to love orchestra as much as I did. I felt like the kids around me just weren't really into it. Why is nobody as excited about this music as I am? And that was what led me to the podium my very first time. And it just felt very natural to be up there and to be leading the group, mostly because I enjoy inspiring people to love music.”
Jessica wasn’t thinking about a career in orchestral conducting in high school. Her primary instrument is the flute.
“It was when I discovered that I had a little bit more of an affinity for orchestral music than wind band music, I realized that I needed to start studying a string instrument, so I began taking violin lessons my junior year of college. That's about the time when I was like, I think I want to go in this direction with being an orchestra director. And again, it's just kind of the love of the repertoire, a lot of a lot of orchestral conductors, they're not necessarily string players. You get a lot of pianists and there are quite a few woodwind and brass players who are also orchestral conductors.
They call it kind of catching the conducting bug where you go to the dark side… I think there's something about it that was, you can kind of be really drawn to the leadership aspect, the wanting to be the one up in front.”
Jessica says out of all the states she’s lived in, she’s always had a positive association with the state of Arkansas.
“And it's because I went to the Hot Springs Music Festival for two years, if I'm remembering right, I think it was 2014 and 2015. Yeah, somewhere around there. But I was invited by Peter Bay, who was the music director of that festival. Peter Bay is also the music director of the Austin Symphony. He invited me to be his assistant conductor of that music festival and Hot Springs Music Festival is only, you know, it's just two weeks, but during the festival events, you know, making music, rehearsing and then and the people, of course, everyone on faculty was amazing. And then also, of course, after hours. And the weird coincidence is our new violin professor. I might mispronounce her last name, Lauren Pokorzynski. She was there with me.
And I've actually chosen part of my program for the first concert is going to be a tie back to Hot Springs. I'm choosing Emmanuel Chabrier's piece, 'España'. 'España' was a piece that I conducted at the Hot Springs Music Festival, and I thought it would be appropriate because it was this connection back to Arkansas. This is like now here I am over 11, 12 years later back in Arkansas, and I want to kind of bring that connection of my positive experience in Hot Springs.”
Jessica says part of the reason she selected Rimsky-Korsakov's “Scheherazade” to be the symphony orchestra’s first concert this year was because she wanted to bring something different to the table for students.
“They did a lot of Italian, like Italian opera. Last year in their last concert, they did a bit of Brahms, a lot of Bernstein and everything. And I thought they haven't really done a Russian composer in a little while, and except for maybe Borodin, but I think that it was maybe three or four years ago that they were performing... Tchaikovsky. But I thought it would be good to do a Russian composer for the first concert. So the idea of having a Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' came to mind. It's a fantastic piece. It's kind of a crowd pleaser. A lot of people love 'Scheherazade'. It's something that's immediately accessible to the ear. But it's also a substantial piece and it offers a lot of solo opportunities to members in the orchestra.
So that's really, I guess, kind of looking at what they had already been doing and saying what, what, what do I, what do I need to kind of make their, um, their curriculum of music repertoire, uh, diverse. You know, just bringing in certain composers and I'll kind of do that for the other concerts as well. But, um, the students seem to be very excited about Scheherazade. Now, one thing I didn't realize was that Sonare Symphony of Northwest Arkansas just did that. And I didn't realize that until after I picked the piece. And I was like, well, okay, it's not like the students performed it. I'm excited for the fact that the students are excited.”
Jessica says this year’s symphony orchestra will be bigger than it has in the past.
“Because we're kind of combining forces for various reasons. There were two orchestras, chamber orchestra and symphony orchestra, and now we're kind of putting all the strings into the symphony orchestra, which I think is the size of a symphony orchestra should have big numbers of strings. So I think that that's good. And I think that the students are excited for that, and it kind of fits the repertoire that they'll be playing. So I'm excited that there seems to be such a positive vibe around here that everyone is just kind of looking forward to the next steps with what the University Symphony Orchestra is going to be. And I'm excited to be here in Arkansas. The music faculty here are just so warm and friendly and welcoming and it's a really good music department. I mean, I've already just been so impressed with everything that I've seen, my first two rehearsals with the orchestra last week were really good. A lot of students had already been practicing their parts and they were just ready to go. Everyone was really like, okay, like, let's do this, you know? So I'm, I'm, I'm inspired by everybody else's attitudes, good, fresh, positive attitudes.”
The University Symphony Orchestra will be performing this coming Monday at the Faulkner Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m.
“They can expect to be hearing a performance of 'España' by Chabrier and then Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade'. And then our second concert will be on November 30th, right after Thanksgiving. I hope that the students will practice during their Thanksgiving break.”
You can visit the University of Arkansas department of music's website for more information on the symphony’s upcoming performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's “Scheherazade” at the Faulkner Performing Arts Center this coming Monday, October 5th.
