Aisling Gheal: A Visionary Collaborative - Part 1

by Siobhán Dugan

Get ready, for it’s less than a week ‘til the Aisling Gheal (Bright Vision) Concert. If you haven’t heard, this will be the Center for Irish Music’s first ever gig with a classical orchestra, the East Metro Symphony Orchestra (EMSO), conducted by EMSO’s Elizabeth Prielozny Barnes. The concert features CIM’s new Young Adult Ensemble (Caillean Magee, Connor Padden, Hannah Flowers, Karen Kenison, Maia Crews-Erjavec and Martha Megarry) under artistic direction of CIM Executive Director and instructor, Norah Rendell. In another first, the event marks the USA premiere of these orchestrations of Irish traditional music, which were originally prepared for the traditional Irish band Altan and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in Dublin. Last but not least, the live concert also introduces North American audiences for the first time to Altan’s orchestral arrangement of ‘The Roseville’, a composition by Altan guitarist --and CIM instructor-- Dáithí Sproule.

The concert program also includes the rarely performed orchestral works: Irish Rhapsody No.1 by Charles Villiers Stanford and Suite of Irish Airs by Frederick May presented by EMSO. A set of traditional Irish jigs, hornpipes, reels and airs will be performed by CIM’s Young Adult Ensemble. The Altan orchestral arrangements, the program’s centerpiece, will be performed by the EMSO and CIM musicians together, and include songs sung in English and Irish Gaelic.

Meet EMSO

The East Metro Symphony Orchestra is a community orchestra that has been providing a broad range of orchestral experiences to the greater Twin Cities area since 1957. Originally the 3M Club Symphony, it was among several music groups funded in service of that community, and members were primarily 3M employees, retirees, or family members. In 2009, 3M discontinued support and the orchestra rebranded as the East Metro Symphony Orchestra (EMSO) and became a non-profit community assembly, with a new physical home in East Ridge High School, Woodbury.

Dr. Elizabeth Prielozny Barnes, EMSO music director and conductor, has been with the orchestra for fourteen seasons. Possessing a Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting, she is an accomplished musician best known for her unique programming and understanding of the important role an orchestra can take in its community.

Community-building has always been a centerpiece of her work. In recent years, she has been designing and conducting orchestra programs that cross conventional boundaries of culture and musical genre. Of particular relevance, EMSO’s ‘Origins’ concert series “explores the folk music and dance of world cultures and their intersection with western classical music.” This was a program that Elizabeth herself brought to the then 3M Orchestra out of her previous experience with the organization ‘Young Audiences of Minnesota’, which brought the arts into the schools through live performances.

Around the turn of the millennium, Elizabeth took a job as artistic and educational director for ‘Young Audiences of Minnesota’. There were 100+ artists on the roster at the time, coming from a wide variety of musical traditions. Elizabeth came from a background of strictly deeply-classical music having completed her doctoral degree in orchestra conducting at the University of Minnesota. “When I got to know some of the artists from Young Audiences,” she recalls, “I started to get all kinds of insights into the music that I thought I already knew, based on musical traditions some of these artists represented.”

Among the first of these she was introduced to in depth was Karen Solgård, a Norwegian Hardanger fiddler. The Hardanger is a traditional bowed string instrument from Norway. Elizabeth said, “Karen was very knowledgeable and articulate about the instrument, the folk music traditions and even the geography of Norway. She also had some classical music background so she could speak to the things that I knew about. I tell the story: ‘We’d gotten together for me to learn about her instrument, which I had never seen before. As I was leaving her house, she said, ‘Did you know, Edvard Grieg (the famous 19th-century Norwegian composer) composed the tune toMorning Mood based on the drone strings of the Hardanger fiddle?’ It has two set of strings,” Elizabeth explained, “One level that you bow on and the other level below that has sympathetic strings. They create a series sound. Karen reached in and plucked the drone strings and the notes were the foundation of the melody to Morning Mood. The opening phrase of “Morning” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt music is also derived from the tuning of the sympathetic strings of the Hardanger fiddle: A, F♯, E, D.” It is interesting to note that Mairéad ní Mhaonaigh from Altan is a fan and she herself plays the Hardanger fiddle!

“It was very moving for me; it was literally a life-changing experience,” Elizabeth recalls, “Because to me, having grown up in the classical tradition of Edvard Grieg which meant ‘nice’ compositions, pretty tunes, nothing special, I suddenly had the kernel, the nugget, the insight into where this very famous and hackneyed tune came from. Suddenly my understanding of this classical composer just exploded! I could hear what a remarkable thing he was able to do to take these four notes and spin them into a huge orchestral piece.”

Thus began a long passion of collaboration with folk traditions, both for their own beauty and for the deep lessons that they could teach about classical music. Subsequent collaborations have included musicians who play music from Appalachia, Paraguay, Bulgaria and Indonesia, to name a few.

Community Based Music

Elizabeth continued, “I didn’t have any natural colleagues to do Irish music with the way I did for several of the other traditional music collaborations through the Young Audiences programs. There were several members of the orchestra saying, ‘Can we do an Irish program? Can we do an Irish program?’ So I started to keep my antenna up. It had always been important to me to have a partner who is not just a performer, but already involved in the education part, because that is what is involved here. It isn’t just a matter of showing up and showing how wonderful you are. No, you have to engage, and want to be able to articulate something to a different kind of audience and be creative and open to explore something different.”

Eventually Elizabeth found the Center for Irish Music website, and then its Facebook page and began observing the life of CIM from that fly-on-the-wall perspective, getting a feel for it. Last spring, she reached out to CIM’s executive director Norah Rendell and explained her ‘Origins’ series and her interest in collaboration. “And Norah said ‘yes’!” Elizabeth exclaimed, “From our first conversation, I could tell Norah had that kind of curious, exploratory nature that wants to engage. … and she is the one who just took it and ran!”

The first proposal involved professional musicians, but when EMSO budget constraints made it clear that wouldn’t be possible, Norah proposed creating the Young Adult Ensemble to fit the bill. “Again, this creative thinking,” Elizabeth said admiringly, “Win-win on everybody’s part, because these kids get an opportunity to become an ensemble in a way that hadn’t existed before. And there’s a purpose -- to prepare for this concert, and it gives them a way to be singled out in a remarkable way.”

Community-based music has always been central to Norah’s passion for CIM and its possibilities. This was evident in the first interview I did with her back in the salad days of her time here in Minnesota, that the chance to interface in an ongoing way with the community, learn what is going on, and build relationships both musically and personally over time is the heart beat of Irish music in its best form, and that communal creation engenders music that is good for the world. With that kind of vision at the core of what she does and where she leads CIM, a project like this did come naturally to her. But not without some caveats.

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Please join East Metro Symphony Orchestra and the Center for Irish Music for

Aisling Gheal (Bright Vision)

Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 3pm

East Ridge High School, 4200 Pioneer Drive, Woodbury, MN 55129

$10 adults - $6 seniors – 18 and under free

Visit www.emsorch.org or www.centerforirishmusic.org for more information