Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra to open season with mix of classic and new

No matter whether you measure an online-only pandemic run, Adam Flatt's 2022-2023 season marks him as the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra's longest-standing music director.

After a two-year search to replace Shinik Hahm, who bore the baton from 2001-2010, Flatt, the final conductor for an all-guest season, became the unanimous choice of musicians, audience members and board members. He took the podium as music director in fall 2011.

Bolstered by the creative energies of Natassia Perrine, hired in spring as executive director -- in-residence boots on the concert hall floor -- Flatt senses "... a kind of starting-line feel. An anticipatory feeling of new and great chapters to come. That's why I'm so eager to get started," with the Sept. 26 season-opening concert "Symphonic Spectacular."

"We are at an inflection point. I think Natassia is going to be able to pick up threads, to bring some things over the finish line, to mix my metaphors," he said. "She is going to be an able administrator, but also a talented idea person."

On a recent conference call -- Flatt resides in Colorado, where he's also music director of the Colorado Ballet; he teleconferences and flies to other gigs, as music director of the TSO, and of Oregon's Newport Symphony -- shared with Perrine and other players, he reveled in stepping back from details, talking for an hour about vision, "... how we want to nurture and raise the profile, invest in the community so that our perception continues to grow."

"We have an incredible influx of energy, and I give all credit to (Perrine)."

The Sept. 26 concert will mark her fourth month on the job, a fine way to celebrate, she said.

"It's been a whirlwind," she said, relocating to Tuscaloosa from New Orleans. She's no stranger, having lived in the Druid City while earning a pair of bachelor's degrees, then a master's in music education, and teaching in the city schools before moving on to other challenges. Parts of this summer have been reacquainting herself with the changing city, while developing partnerships.

"Having been in the classroom for the last 11 years, being out and about meeting people has just been energizing," she said. "One of my big goals coming into the job has been connecting with more folks through the community, and doing that through education."

She has extended an engagement program for elementary school students, begun as YouTube lessons out of pandemic necessity. Upcoming "Musical Read Alouds with Ms. P" will be held 10 a.m. Saturdays at the Tuscaloosa Public Library, Oct. 8, Nov. 19 and Dec. 10. Schools interested in learning more can contact her via email at nperrine@tsoonline.org.

The TSO has strengthened ties through the Adopt-A-School Program, joining naturally with The Alberta School of Performing Arts. TASPA will enjoy in-school performances, educational programs and other perks.

At 4 p.m. March 26, the TSO will perform its annual family concert, built around an original piece by TSO tubist and composer Kenyon Wilson, titled "Give Me Space." Astronomical themes will be expanded via outer-space visual art and dance collaborations from students at TASPA, and The Tuscaloosa Fine Arts Academy at Paul W. Bryant High School.

The TSO has also created an internship program focused on building student engagement.

"That's our future audience," Perrine said, noting students are admitted free to TSO concerts. "All students. I want families at our concerts, and not just in March, however we can include them."

The Sept. 26 "Symphonic Spectacular," 7 p.m. in the Moody Concert Hall at the University of Alabama, would be a great starting point for anyone, Perrine said. It's balanced between classics and rousing contemporary works, showing off the breadth of the orchestra, and concluding with focus on its visually and aurally striking Holtkamp organ.

"I try to make each evening feel like a fulfilling meal," Flatt said. "I plan it like a chef. My ideal patron experience, each would feel a real sense of saiety and variety, culture through the received canon, and also exploration on the less-familiar things. I'm particularly proud to expect that what might not yet be familiar will be loved."

Whether from "The Lone Ranger," the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup," "A Clockwork Orange," "The Flintstones" or numerous Looney Tunes animations, Gioachino Rossini's "Overture to Guillaume (William) Tell" must be one of history's best-known and -loved pieces of art music. Instantly recognizable by its rollicking fourth section, the roughly 12-minute symphony begins with a melancholic "Prelude: Dawn," hinting at the coming E minor "Storm" through ominous timpani rolls, ending on an extremely high sustained cello note.

Horns and drums from the tempest's rumble recede to a solo flute, which leads into the pastoral calm after the storm, "Ranz des Vaches" (Call to the Cows), alternating English horn and flute passages. This lilting melody's the second-most recognizable stretch, often used to signify dawn, birth, or blissful innocence, probably first used as such in Disney's 1937 "The Old Mill."

Then comes the romping, stomping “March of the Swiss Soldiers," galloping at such frantic pace it's no wonder the theme's typically used to underscore horseback heroes riding to rescue.

Works by a pair of living composers follow, in Gabriela Lena Frank's "Three Latin Dances," which draws on her blended Peruvian-Chinese-Lithuanian-Jewish heritage, and John Williams' "With Malice Toward None," from his Oscar-nominated score for Steven Spielberg's 2012 film "Lincoln," the latter featuring the TSO's principal trumpet, Eric Yates.

"Frank's kind of a hot property now, as a composer," Flatt said. "And I'm like the opposite of trendy by nature, so I was a little late to this party, but my God, what a composer. ... Such good, rousing music. It's deep, and will reward years of familiarity, but it's also completely giving to the first-time listener."

Williams, 90, announced that his work on the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie will be his last, but it's safe to say that, through film scores, he's written many of the best-known themes of the 20th and 21st centuries, in "Jaws," the "Star Wars" sagas -- 1977's "A New Hope" was selected by the American Film Institute as the greatest film score of all time -- the first two "Jurassic Park" movies, the 1978 Richard Donner "Superman," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," "Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List," the first three "Harry Potter" movies, and many others. With 52 Oscar nominations, he's the second-most Academy Award-recognized artist, after Walt Disney.

The title of the elegiac piece draws from an address President Lincoln gave just 41 days before his assassination.

"Those were the famous words he finished his second inaugural speech with, trying to bring the nation together," Perrine said. "We needed to talk about that in 1865, and we need to talk about it in 2022."

That final sentence: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

The Sept. 26 concert concludes with Amir Zaheri, associate director of UA's School of Music, soloing on the Holtkamp organ, one of only a handful like it in the world.

"I think there's only five or six of that model," Perrine said. "The hall was constructed around this organ, so it will be quite a finale."

For those yet to visit the Moody, it's tough to envision its immensity, the dynamic sound and feel of the Holtkamp, which dominates the roughly 1,000 capacity hall. It stands three stories high, with four manual keyboards, 65 stops, and 86 ranks of more than 5,000 pipes.

Tickets for the Sept. 26 concert, 7 p.m. in the Moody Concert Hall, are $30, through www.tsoonline.org; students are admitted free.

Flatt's feeling renewed, regardless of year count. Tuscaloosa native Ransom Wilson, a nationally renowned flutist and conductor, became the TSO's first music director, from 1985-1992. The TSO was formed in 1984 as a professional orchestra, from the roots of the Tuscaloosa Area Community Orchestra. Wilson was followed by Adrian Gnam, then Louis Lane, before Hahm signed on in 2001.

Flatt signed a new five-year contract in fall 2019. Obviously, something's working.

"The first time, I remember vividly how well we clicked, these musicians and I," Flatt said. "I felt so good about them from the outset. And I think I bring to them a serious work ethic, but I don't take myself too seriously ..... We certainly take the art very seriously.

"A lot of relationships get tired over time, because of self-regard and such getting in the way. But when we have this feeling of joining together and serving the music, it serves the evergreen feel."

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra opens season with mix of classic and new