Columbus Symphony's 'Carmina Burana' performances to be dedicated to the late David Niwa
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Columbus Symphony and Chorus to perform 'Carmina Burana' with children's choir, soloists
Even if you haven’t heard of Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana,” you have likely heard portions from the piece itself.
Just have a listen the next time you head to Ohio Stadium to watch the Buckeyes.
“Everyone knows it because if you watch an Ohio State football game, they play the first eight or nine bars seven or eight times,” said Ronald J. Jenkins, the conductor of the Columbus Symphony Chorus, which will join the Columbus Symphony, Columbus Children’s Choir and three soloists — soprano Ashley Fabian, tenor Arthur W. Marks and baritone Ethan Vincent — for performances of Orff’s 1937 masterpiece.
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“(The piece) has been used in automobile commercials,” Jenkins said of the work’s unique ubiquity in popular culture. “Why do they use it? Because it’s so dramatic and so exciting.”
The season-opening performances on Friday and Saturday will represent the first time the symphony has performed the ambitious work since 2015, when Music Director Rossen Milanov was just beginning his tenure with the organization.
Now, as the symphony seeks to return from two pandemic-era seasons, Milanov decided to program a work likely to resonate with a wide variety of listeners.
“The thinking was to start with something that would have a very broad appeal, not only to the people that stick to more classical types of titles,” Milanov said. “We wanted to celebrate the fact that we would like to be again together with our patrons.”
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Many artists to share the stage
In terms of the number of musicians and singers to be on the stage of the Ohio, “Carmina Burana” may remind concertgoers of pre-pandemic days: 75 symphony members will be joined by 125 chorus members, 48 children’s choir members plus the three soloists who will sing a work in Medieval Latin and Middle High German.
“The music is not so difficult,” Jenkins said. “Getting all the words in — that’s what difficult about this piece.”
And about those words: The piece stems from Medieval Era texts that were unearthed centuries after they were penned.
“It’s telling us how fickle fortune can sometimes be,” Jenkins said. “We really can’t control the outcome of many things. We feel we can, but ultimately, we cannot.”
But, in the end, the work’s power derives from what it sounds like, not what it says.
“What Orff arrived at in the middle of the 1930s was this very primitive, very primal, primeval kind of a language that we all have — that sense of rhythm that unites us, that makes us tap our feet all at the same time,” Milanov said. “This is probably one of the main reasons why this piece is so captivating.”
And don’t worry if you don’t understand the languages being sung.
“That adds to the mysticism of the work,” Milanov said, adding that next weekend’s concerts will be dedicated to the memory of symphony assistant concertmaster David Niwa, who died Sept. 1, at age 58.
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Chorus director's final season
The concerts are significant in another way: Jenkins, who has led the chorus since 1982, will retire at the finish of the current season. He decided to move on to have more time to travel and pursue other interests.
“Being the conductor of the chorus requires you to be in Columbus,” said Jenkins, 81, who contemplated retiring at the end of last season but was coaxed to come back one more year.
“It’s an important job and it’s demanding, and it needs to be,” Jenkins said. “I thought I’d come to the end of my time to do it in the manner in which I want to do it.”
But, before then, Jenkins has a full season ahead of him — starting on a robust note with “Carmina Burana.”
“It’s fun and has enough challenge in it to make things interesting for the orchestra and the chorus,” he said. “The audience just loves it — that’s a good reason to do a piece of music.”
At a glance
The Columbus Symphony and Chorus and the Columbus Children’s Choir will perform “Carmina Burana” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St. Tickets start at $30.50. For more information, visit www.columbussymphony.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Symphony and Chorus to open season with 'Carmina Burana'
