Orchestra offers cool jazz twist to holiday favorite with Ellington's 'Nutcracker Suite'

The holiday musical celebrations will start early Saturday as the Akron Symphony Orchestra gets jazzy with Duke Ellington's "Nutcracker Suite," a hip, big band spin on the beloved holiday classic "The Nutcracker."

The orchestra will be pulling out all the stops at 7 p.m. at E.J. Thomas Hall as it joins forces with a trio of local jazz musicians to swing it with Ellington's jazz interpretations of Tchaikovsky's 1892 "Nutcracker" ballet, one of the most popular works in the orchestral repertoire.

Ellington and Billy Strayhorn arranged and recorded "Nutcracker Suite" in 1960 for Ellington's 16-man orchestra. The Akron Symphony Orchestra will play the full orchestral version of the suite, which was orchestrated by Jeff Tyzik in 1998 and features five of the best-known "Nutcracker" dances.

The orchestra's program, called "Ellington's Nutcracker & the Ballad of the Brown King," is a bonus holiday concert this year for the Akron Symphony, which also will perform its perennial Home for the Holidays Christmas family concert Dec. 9 and the homegrown "The Akron Nutcracker" live Dec. 22 and 23 with the University of Akron Dance Institute and Verb Ballets, both at E.J. Thomas Hall.

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"The Nutcracker," written by Russian composer Tchaikovsky, is universally known. Ellington's "Nutcracker Suite” channels that universality through an African American lens, said orchestra Music Director Christopher Wilkins.

"To hear it put through the big band sounds of the Cotton Club in Harlem is just really interesting," he said. "It's actually being made American. It's being brought into a world that we also all understand."

Ellington's rendition of the "Nutcracker" overture's famous melody is introduced by a walking bassline and features sax and trumpet solos. The original "Dance of the Reed Pipes" becomes "Toot Toot Tootie Toot," a relaxed swing featuring woodwinds.

"Waltz of the Flowers" becomes "Dance of the Floreadores" and "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is transformed into the bluesy, sexy "Sugar Rum Cherry." Finally, "March of the Toy Soldiers" becomes the hard-swinging, heavy brass "Peanut Brittle Brigade."

Each of the four works on Saturday's program takes older material and gives it new life, Willkins said, "kind of old wine in new bottles."

"People recognize the Tchaikovsky. It's very recognizable but it's totally updated," Wilkins said of Ellington's jazz remake. "It's not that well known. Jazz people know it more than symphonic people.

"It's one of my bugaboos that maybe America's greatest composer — Duke Ellington — wrote a lot of extended works, including works that are playable by orchestras, and orchestras don't play them," Wilkins said.

"We're playing music that's much closer to what people are listening to in their free time. It's what you hear on the radio."

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'Ballad of the Brown King'

Also Saturday, Akron audiences will be introduced to Margaret Bonds' "The Ballad of the Brown King," a Christmas cantata that tells the Nativity story through Balthazar, the Black member of the Three Kings. In this work, mid-century, Black composer Bonds set the poetry of her close friend Langston Hughes to music.

"Langston took the idea and said, 'Let's just for the moment look at that [Nativity] story from Balthasar's perspective,' " Wilkins said.

"Here's a wonderful piece that's been around for a long time that people don't know by a really important American composer that people don't know," Wilkins said of Bonds' work, which includes gospel, spiritual and jazz styles.

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Akron-born soprano Louise Toppin, an international performing star, will have a homecoming as soprano soloist for "The Ballad of the Brown King." She'll be joined by two of her students from the University of Michigan — mezzo-soprano Jaime Sharp and tenor Tyrese Byrd — and bass-baritone Frank Ward, who teaches voice at the University of Akron.

Also singing "The Ballad of the Brown King" Christmas cantata will be the full Akron Symphony Chorus and select members of the Gospel Meets Symphony Chorus. Choir director Chris Albanese and Wilkins agreed that the work would be perfect for both the chorus and orchestra to perform for the holidays.

The orchestra also will perform the world premiere of Akron-raised Julia Perry's "Fragments from the Letters of Saint Catherine" from 1953, which was published but has never been performed before. Perry graduated from Akron's Central High School and studied briefly at the University of Akron before moving on to Westminster Choir College and the Juilliard School and then finding success as a composer in Italy.

In "Fragments from the Letters of Saint Catherine," the Black composer's modernist work is inspired by medieval manuscripts. Akron's world premiere will feature soloist Toppin, a 14-voice chamber choir and the Akron Symphony chamber orchestra.

Also on the program will be Respighi's "Ancient Airs and New Dances Suite No. 2," which are the composer's 1923 arrangements of courtly songs and dance music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Akron performance will feature two harpsichord players on one instrument, including the orchestra's Bob Mollard and Robert Frankenberry of Pittsburgh.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

Details

Concert: "Ellington's Nutcracker & The Ballad of the Brown King"

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron, 198 Hill St., Akron

Onstage: Akron Symphony Orchestra; vocal soloists Louise Toppin, Jaime Sharp, Tyrese Byrd, Frank Ward; Akron Symphony Chorus; members of the Gospel Meets Symphony Chorus; "Frammenti" Chamber Choir; conductor Christopher Wilkins

Preconcert talk: Preview from the Podium, 6:30 p.m.

Cost: $20-$60; students $15

Information: akronsymphony.org or 330-535-8131

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Symphony to perform exciting jazz twist on 'Nutcracker' favorite