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By David Amos
 SAN DIEGO—It is always interesting and rewarding when different elements come together to form an interesting and meaningful concert. This will be the case, when the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra presents its programs of Sunday, November 15, 4:30 p.m., (Palisades Presbyterian Church of Allied Gardens), and Tuesday, the 17th, 7:30 p.m. at Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s Cohen Social Hall.
Last year, I was invited to conduct a fine Canadian group, the Stratford Symphony Orchestra; we played music by Bach, Mozart, and Rimsky-Korsakov. As part of this podium exchange, this orchestra’s conductor, Jerome Summers will conduct TICO in two San Diego concerts.
Summers, originally from British Columbia, played clarinet in the Vancouver Symphony and CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestras. A versatile musician, he has established a distinguished career as a conductor, composer, and clarinetist. Since locating in Ontario, Maestro Summers has appeared with many of Canada’s leading orchestras, and has broadcasts frequently on CBC, National Radio. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and is currently the music director of the International Symphony Orchestra of Sarnia/Port Huron, Michigan, and the Stratford Symphony.
Considering that Maestro Summers is an accomplished clarinet player, I teamed him for this concert with the guest soloist, clarinetist Marian Liebowitz. Together, they will perform Carl Maria Von-Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1, and a curious and delightful Klezmer-like miniature by film composer John Williams, his Viktor’s Tale, from the motion picture The Terminal, which starred Tom Hanks.
Ms. Liebowitz, a Professor of Music at San Diego State University, is a winner of the U.S. State Department/Kennedy Center 1997 Artistic Ambassador Competition, and represented the United States in Latin America that year by performing a month-long tour in seven countries. She has continued touring and performing in Latin America under the auspices of various embassies, giving concerts and offering classes in arts management, wind instruments, and chamber music. This is her second time as a soloist with TICO.
And the Von-Weber connection does not stop here. Maestro Summers will direct Von-Weber’s rarely heard Overture to Turandot, incidental music written for a play which also inspired Puccini’s great opera decades later; the main theme is based on an old Chinese melody.
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Later in the concert, we will hear Paul Hindemith’s famous and popular Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Von-Weber, which utilizes various Von-Weber melodies, including the one from Turandot, into a lively Twentieth Century symphony. Hindemith has been called the “20th Century Bach”, for his skillful use of counterpoint and traditional forms.
Carl Maria Von-Weber (1786-1826) was one of the important composers of the early Romantic School. He composed symphonies, chamber music, operas, piano music, many works for clarinet, and was lavishly praised by his contemporary, Beethoven. Many other composers were inspired by his work, including Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler, Debussy, and Stravinsky.
Hindemith, (1895-1963), left Germany in 1938, after being heavily persecuted for having a half-Jewish wife, and receiving scathing criticism from the Third Reich for his “degenerate music” He made his permanent home in the U.S. , taught at Yale University, composed, lectured, and conducted.
There are two additional elements of interest in this concert. The opening selection is the festive Canadian Celebration Overture by the American-Canadian Ronald Royer. By coincidence or design, this Overture has many challenging and beautiful solo clarinet passages. His compositions have been performed throughout Canada, the U.S., Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, and Mexico by leading soloists and ensembles and over fifty orchestras.
Born into a family of professional musicians, Royer began his career as a cellist, performing with such ensembles as the Utah Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, as well as working in the Motion Picture and Television industry in Los Angeles during the1980’s.
Jerome Summers will also conduct his own adaptation of the Adagio from the Quintet for Strings in F Minor by Anton Bruckner.
For directions, more information, ticket reservations, group rates, or to receive the season brochure, call the synagogue office, (619) 697 6001, or go on line to: www.tiferethisrael.com/TICO.
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