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Getting Woody into the concert hall
Published: 11/6/2008 10:50 AM
Last Modified: 11/6/2008 10:50 AM

For some listeners, classical music is a bit like comfort food: they want it to be familiar, they want it to be soothing, and they want it done "the way it's always been done."

Mess with that recipe, and the crowd can turn ugly. Or worse, be put off concert music for good.

That is one reason why orchestras can be reluctant about programming new (or relatively new) music. It's something outside the norm, outside the expected. It's apricots in the mashed potatoes.

Of course, every piece of music at one point in time was "new music." But because the context of society is different -- symphonies and string quartets are not the standard entertainment of the day, as they once were -- sometimes composers seek their inspiration in popular music.

Again, this isn't new. And neither is it necessarily a "dumbing down" of classical music, or a misguided attempt to "elevate" pop music. It is simply a way of springboarding creativity.

This Saturday, 8 Nov., the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community college will perform David Amram's Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie. Amram has taken Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" and recast that melody into a number of different settings that are designed to evoke the American landscape throughout Guthrie journeyed in his life.

The piece was commissioned by the Guthrie family of Amram, who knew Guthrie in the 1950s and '60s, and the work was premiered in 2007 by the Silicon Valley Symphony in California.

For those who might want to get a sense of what this music sounds like, the Silicon Valley Symphony has audio files of its performance on the orchestra's website.
Audio: Silicon Valley Symphony

http://www.symphonysiliconvalley.org/concerts.php?pagecontID=9


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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