A treat for the ears: Mandolin Concerto to hit national airwaves

Coming to airwaves near you!

The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will be featured on a broadcast of AMP's Performance Today radio show on Wednesday, April 4. To hear it, visit wuot.org and click "listen live" at 4 p.m. ET on Channel WUOT-2. This broadcast will be available online for 30 days following.

On Wednesday, April 4, Performance Today will feature WUOT-FM's Afternoon Host, Garrett McQueen, as guest host. Garrett will feature the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's performance of Jeff Midkiff's Concerto for Mandolin and Orchestra, "From the Blue Ridge," a 20-minute piece inspired by mountain music traditionally heard in this region.

 

American Public Media's Performance Today is the nation's most popular classical music radio program. This two-hour program:
- is broadcast on nearly 300 public radio stations across the country each week, including WUOT 91.9 FM on Sunday evenings 
- reaches approximately 1.4 million listeners each week
- features live concert recordings that can't be heard anywhere else
- is based at the AMP Studios in St. Paul, MN but is frequently on the road with special programs broadcast from festivals and public radio stations across the country.

About the performance: Concerto for Mandolin & Orchestra

- Composed by Jeff Midkiff
- Conducted by Aram Demirjian, featuring Jeff Midkiff on solo mandolin
- Premiered in 2011, this piece was performed by the KSO in November 2016
- Recorded at the Tennessee Theatre, part of the KSO Moxley Carmichael Masterworks Series
- This broadcast is made possible by the support of Visit Knoxville (www.visitknoxville.org)

Thank you to the generous support of Visit Knoxville for making this broadcast possible. Thanks to WUOT-FM 91.9 Afternoon Host Garrett McQueen, who is also the KSO's Second Bassoon.

Here is a link to WUOT.org (click "listen live")

Here is a link to more about Garrett McQueen

Here is a link to more about Jeff Midkiff, composer and mandolinist

About the Concerto

Mandolin Concerto "From the Blue Ridge" (2011)

Jeff Midkiff was born in Roanoke, VA in 1963. The first performance of the Mandolin Concerto, "From the Blue Ridge," took place at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theater, Oct. 3, 2011, with the composer as soloist, and David Stewart Wiley conducting the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. In addition to solo mandolin, the Concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.

My love for playing the mandolin, and a lifetime of doing so, began to take on new meaning and motivation after decades of performing also as a clarinetist. I felt a deep-seated desire to bring my favorite instrument in line with orchestral experience. I truly enjoy the color, language, and structure of the symphony orchestra, and many years as a clarinetist made me familiar with it. At the same time, I enjoyed a highly improvisational approach to the mandolin that was uniquely my own. I had struggled to keep the two -- orchestra and mandolin -- a safe distance apart. I knew I could say something with the mandolin on an orchestral scale. Deep down, I wanted to bring my most natural companion to the orchestra -- two seemingly different worlds together.

The first movement begins with the mandolin on swirling sixteenth notes, setting the stage with excitement and anticipation. The commission for the piece came to me in November when the falling leaves drew this opening scene. Indeed, the Blue Ridge's beauty and importance would form the piece. The middle of the first movement moves to major tonality with woodwinds in a waltz-like dance before a return to the opening theme.

The lyrical second movement draws on more typical and familiar bluegrass melodies. Having grown up in Roanoke, moved away and returned, I wanted the concerto to echo the emotions associated with home, and with going home. To get there, I looked no further than the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Roanoke Valley. "Wildwood Flower" by The Carter Family and Bill Monroe's "Roanoke" are the thematic inspiration.

The third movement is an upbeat, exciting, spontaneous and dynamic affair. It draws strongly upon jazz and bluegrass themes in a series of ideas in a "controlled jam session" -- one idea smoothly leading to another. Every section of the orchestra has a role to play with the particularly expanded use of percussion setting up the different groves."

-- Jeff Midkiff, www.jeffmidkiff.com

This post authored by the KSO Communications Dept.