Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra caps off concert season with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9
Piano virtuoso Ian Parker conducts a program that also features Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, among other works
Ian Parker.
Vancouver Academy of Music presents VAM Symphony Orchestra: New World Symphony & Rhapsody in Blue on May 25 at 7:30pm at the Kay Meek Arts Centre and May 26 at 2 pm at the Orpheum
ANTONIN DVORAK’S SYMPHONY Number 9 in in E Minor, also known as From The New World Symphony, is considered the Czech composer’s signature piece, one that has been used in movies and TV shows including The Departed, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, The Simpsons, Ted Lasso, and The Twilight Zone, to name just a few. Legend has it that astronaut Neil Armstrong played it when he took his famous steps on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
It’s also a piece that Vancouver pianist and conductor Ian Parker recalls hearing as far back as his preschool days when he was taking piano lessons from his dad.
“I remember my father’s very first Xerox machine played that tune when it warmed up,” Parker says in an interview with Stir. “I’ve probably heard that tune since I was a young kid listening to my dad Xeroxing for his music classes. It’s such a famous piece you just know it.”
To cap off its 2023-24 season, Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra will perform Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in a program that also includes George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Edmonton-based composer Allan Gilliland’s Dreaming of the Masters III. Gilliland composed the piece for trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann, who will share more than solo duties with Parker at the upcoming show.
“This concert is one of the most exciting ones on the menu for my entire year,” says Parker, who is the VAM Symphony Orchestra’s music director and principal conductor. “I’m going to be conducting the Rhapsody in Blue from the keyboard so I either conduct with a free hand or conduct with my face when my hands are busy. But to have a bit more fun here there are going to be a couple of moments in Rhapsody in Blue where Jens will step in conduct with his free arm. So there will be a little bit of shared conducting as well as shared solo moments between Jens and myself.”
Parker, who was three years old when he started piano lessons at home, has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree of music from The Juilliard School. He has performed with the symphonies of Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Edmonton, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Santa Barbara, and Honolulu, among others.
Symphony No. 9 is nicknamed From The New World Symphony because Dvořák wrote it during time he spent in the United States in the 1890s. He left his homeland in 1892 to direct the National Conservatory of Music in New York. While overseas, he discovered African-American and Native-American melodies. The piece premiered with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1893 and is considered to mark a turning point in the acceptance and use of American music and lore as source material to draw upon in classical composition.
“You can appreciate some of the folk tunes that Dvořák picked up while living in the Eastern United States and included in the first movement,” Parker says. “Also rhythmically the third movement is such a challenge. There are so many polyrhythms and for a conductor it’s an absolute thrill and joy to get the orchestra to figure that out and to teach them and work the polyrhythms amongst dozens of musicians at the same time. So it’s a very highly technical movement but so thrilling for the musicians. The last movement is so triumphant and memorable.”
Parker has included Rhapsody in Blue in the program to mark its 100th anniversary this year. It’s one of the most popular American concert works, a blend of American and European musical styles. Lindemann will be playing piccolo trumpet.
“This was the first piece I ever played with an orchestra and the first piece I played with a youth symphony when I was around the same age as a lot of these students,” Parker says. “It’s a piece Jens and I have already toured extensively and it's been such a joy. It’s a piece that the students just love to play, and audiences love it. It’s a celebration of the finale of the school season and the concert season. You really couldn’t dig your teeth into a more exciting and triumphant piece of music.”
Dreaming of the Masters III is a crossover between jazz and classical music. The piece premiered it with the Edmonton Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 2010 and Lindemann tours it frequently. “It is very jazzy in style and has a very highly upbeat Latin rhythmic final movement, but it’s written in a very orchestral and symphonic manner so that we still utilize the orchestra in a classical way,” Parker says. “It’s very much a jazz-inspired piece with moments where the rhythm is to be swung—there’s very fun swinging of the jazz, and the last movement is a super-fast Latin dance. You just can’t believe some of the pyrotechnics that you will hear on the trumpet.”
The concert will open with the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. “It’s full of humour and sarcasm and fun as Mozart is famous for writing in that way, and even though it’s playful it’s probably one of most in intricate and difficult pieces for strings,” Parker says. “It’s very technical and you’ve got to just absolutely have your chops at the highest degree of preparation. String players, when they start a program, their fingers are cold so that’s going to be an extra challenge, but we start with it to whet people’s appetites.” 
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