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Jackson Symphony Mixing Jazz and Classical a la Bernstein

Courtesy: Dr. Aubin
Dr. Matthew Aubin

Saturday night at the Potter Center in Jackson, the JSO continues their season-long celebration of the birth of Leonard Bernstein's 100 years ago. WKAR's Jamie Paisley speaks with JSO's conductor, Dr. Matthew Aubin about the Bernstein (& Bernstein adjacent) pieces on the program.

Jamie Paisley (JP): The third concert the Signature Serieswith the Jackson Symphony is taking off this weekend, and it's part of this series, celebrating 100 years of Leonard Bernstein. How does this concert fit into that overall arc that you've set up?

Dr. Matthew Aubin(MA): Right. Well, this is 'Bernstein: The Composer.' When I was program this concert, I wasn't sure whether I'd go the route of programming more obscure works by Bernstein, that not everybody gets to hear, or programming some of his most famous works, and ultimately, I decided, you know, let's go with the latter.

[Music from "On The Town"]

JP: In the first half of the performance, On The Town and those three dance episodes, you are also incorporating an organization that you've partnered with in the past.

MA: Right.

JP: The Ballet Chelsea.

MA: Yeah, Ballet Chelsea is joining us for On The Town. We had permission from the Bernstein family to do choreography with On The Town. So, I'm just excited because it's been a really healthy relationship. They worked with us a couple of years ago. You know, we've been doing The Nutcracker for a couple of years, and now to bring them back in something American, is fantastic.

JP: So you had to reach out to the estate?

MA: Yeah, you actually, if you're going to do something that involves theatrics like this, or dance, you have to have permission to do that. In fact, there's another version of West Side Story that they only sanction if you're performing it with the ballet. So, there's a lot of rules when it comes to his music.

[Music from 'West Side Story']

JP: In addition to the Leonard Bernstein pieces, part of this Bernstein is not just dealing with the central topic, but things related to it, and you're got a Michigan Premiere that addresses that.

MA: Right, the composer is Greg Yasinitsky, and it's interesting, he was my department head at Washington State University. He's a very fantastic composer both for classical and Jazz, he's actually the saxophone player for the Spokane Symphony. So, in addition for, you know, us getting to perform his newly composed Jazz Piano Concerto which, you know, features conventional playing from the orchestra, but the pianist goes in and out of actually composed music and improvisation. So it's really interesting the way it kinda slides back and forth.

[Music from Yasinitsky's Jazz Concerto for Piano]

MA: Now that's crazy is that the premiere actually took place under the baton of Tim Muffitt, the music director of the Lansing Symphony, but they did it with his other orchestra in Baton Rouge. Same pianist, but he was responsible for the commission. So, it's kind of a 'small world' thing.

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Dr. Matthew Aubin leads the Jackson Symphony Orchestra in music of Leonard Bernstein: His West Side Story Symphonic Dances; Three Dances Episodes of On The Town, featuring guest artists of Ballet Chelsea; plus music of Aaron Copland, and a Michigan Premiere of a Jazz Piano Concerto by Yasinitsky. That's this Saturday night at the Potter Center. More information at JacksonSymphony.org

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