An evening of Russian music
A Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday night, “A Russian Winter,” will feature a cello solo by a native Romanian musician who teaches at UND and some of the most romantic music ever written by Russian composers.
The “Russian Winter” concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Grand Forks Empire Arts Center. Simona Barbu, UND assistant professor of cello and Burgum Endowed Chair, will be the soloist on “Variations on a Rococo Theme,” written by the great Russian Peter Tchaikovsky. “Variations” demonstrates Mozart’s influence on Tchaikovsky.
“He worshipped Mozart,” said Alexander Platt, musical director of the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra. Platt said the program for “A Russian Winter” was built around the Tchaikovsky piece, in part because it would welcome Barbu to Grand Forks as a cello soloist, Platt said, and in part because it satisfied Platt’s great affinity for Russian composers.
“I’ve always loved the Russian repertoire,” he said. “It’s somehow part of my DNA. I’m not sure how.”
The concert should make for a perfect date night as well, he said.
“I couldn’t come up with a better concert for before Valentine’s Day,” Platt said. “The music is grand romance.”
Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) and pieces by three other great Russians will be featured in the program for “A Russian Winter.”
- The fun and energetic “Procession of the Nobles” is from “Mlada,” an opera/ballet composed (ca. 1889) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), whose style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmony, melody and rhythm. For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined composing and teaching with a career in the Russian Navy. “Procession of the Nobles” may be familiar to some listeners as the theme for the PBS public affairs program “Inside Washington.”
- Then, there’s the lyrical “On the Steppes of Central Asia,” composed in 1880 by Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), a “musical tableau” originally intended to celebrate the silver anniversary of the reign of Czar Alexander II, who had done much to expand the Russian empire eastward. However, Alexander II was assassinated in a bombing in 1881, and the intended production never happened. In addition to being a composer, Borodin also was a chemist.
- “Symphony No. 5” by Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) was written in 1895 and first performed in 1896. A newspaper called the symphony “very profound” and “sparkling.” Glazunov, a composer, teacher and conductor, was known for his remarkable memory (upon hearing a piece, he could replay it months later from memory). Despite his alcoholism, he was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory from 1905 until 1928, when — tired and frustrated with his responsibilities — he left Russia. The announcement of his death in 1936 came as a shock to many who thought he’d already been dead for years.
About soloist Barbu
Barbu grew up in Timisoara in western Romania in an area south of the Ukraine and just east of Serbia and Hungary. She has performed as a soloist throughout the U.S. and her native Romania and began to climb to prominence as a member of the leading quartet of the Conservatory of Timisoara, according to her biography. She began studying violin when she was seven and continued her studies through seventh grade.
Then, sibling rivalry took a hand. Barbu had an older sister, also a violinist, very talented and very ambitious, and Simona grew tired of the competition. She began “fooling around” with the cello and found she liked it and liked the cello instructor.
When she asked if she could switch from violin to cello, a lot of people thought it was a bad idea. The head of the violin department and others pointed out that if she did switch to cello, she had less than a year to prepare herself to pass a proficiency test that was required for her to advance to the next level.
“But the teacher said, ‘I’ll give you a year to try.’ That’s what I needed, what I had to do to be motivated,” Barbu said. When the proficiency exam rolled around, Barbu had the highest scores of anyone studying cello.
“I think if you really want something, that’s when you fight for it,” she said. “Even if you think, ‘I might not be the greatest, but at least I can try.’ That’s my take. And I think this is one of the selling points for me later on, just as me as a person. Where I taught before, that’s why they liked about me. If they asked me to do something, I would say, ‘I will try.’”
Before Grand Forks
Before coming to UND, Barbu was a doctoral candidate in cello performance (she now has her doctorate) at the University of Memphis under the guidance of Leonardo Altino. While there, she also held a graduate assistantship in teaching and chamber music. She was the winner of the Concerto Competition in her first year of studies and was appointed principal cellist of the U of M Symphony Orchestra throughout her studies. Barbu also was first-call cellist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and the principal cellist for Eroica Ensemble and Starkville Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to her studies and performances, Barbu taught strings at Mississippi State University for four years, where she directed the newly formed orchestra program, among other things.
She was hired at UND to do what she’d done before: To help move the music department forward by growing and developing its strings program and to help recruit excellent students by offering them a first-rate education.
The Burgum Endowed Chair that Barbu holds is the first of its kind in the UND College of Arts and Sciences. The endowed teaching position was made possible by donors Rick (’68) and Jody Burgum (’74).
Helping UND music grow
At the time Barbu’s hiring was announced, UND Music Department Chairman Michael Wittgraf said having a full-time faculty member in low strings would enable the music department to actively seek and attract talented students from the region, nation and world.
“The generous endowment from the Burgums gives the UND orchestra program the resources it needs to move from great to exceptional,” Wittgraf said at the time.
In addition to teaching, Barbu said, 35 percent of her job at UND is to perform locally and internationally. She has recitals coming up in Grand Forks and in Wisconsin, and in March, she will join fellow UND music faculty Nariaki Sugiura (piano) and Alejandro Drago (chamber music, strings) on a recruiting and performing tour in China.
Reach Tobin at (701) 780-1134; (800) 477-6572, ext. 134; or send e-mail to ptobin@gfherald.com.
If you go
- What: Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra presents “A Russian Winter”
- When and where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Empire Arts Center, Grand Forks
- Program: “Procession of the Nobles,” Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “On the Steppes of Central Asia,” Alexander Borodin; “Variations on a Rococo Theme,” Peter Tchaikovsky; “Symphony No. 5,” Alexander Glazunov
- Soloist: Simona Barbu, UND Department of Music, assistant professor of cello and Burgum Endowed Chair, on cello for “Variataions on a Rococo Theme”
- Tickets: Adults, $15; students, $10; available in advance at www.ggfso.org with credit card or at the door. Questions? (701) 732-0579