Mark Gresham | 20 DEC 2023
Dashing toward Christmas, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra brings a new, late addition to its panoply of Holiday Concerts at Symphony Hal. This Saturday’s two “Sounds of the Season” concerts feature not only the familiar sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker but also a twist: parallel jazz takes on the famous ballet music in “big band” style by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, interleaved with classic popular holiday standards sung by vocalist Tammy McCann.
EarRelevant publisher and principal writer Mark Gresham recently spoke with ASO associate conductor William R. Langley about the program and its origins. The Q&A below is drawn from that conversation and is edited for length and clarity.
Mark Gresham: You’ve got these two “Sounds of the Season” concerts coming up on Saturday. I’m interested in several things. One, the fact that this concert was a late addition to the ASO schedule. Did you came up with the idea for doing this?
William R. Langley: It takes a village, you know. It was the artistic team. The idea was that we have “Christmas with the ASO,” which is incredible. I was just there the other night for the final performance with Norman Mackenzie conducting and was blown away by this magical tradition that the ASO has; it’s just incredible—song after song after song. I just thought it flowed beautifully and I was so moved.
We also had the little mini tour I conducted last week where we went to Reinhart University, Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, and North Avenue Presbyterian Church. We’ve done holiday concerts at North Avenue for 25 years and 44 years in Madison, Georgia. And then there’s the Messiah. These are all usually early to mid-month.
“Sounds of the Season” came from the idea of a holiday pops program that is just a little bit for everybody but closer to Christmas. What do we have when families are in town when everyone is nestling in for Christmas? So here we are on December 23rd, the day before Christmas Eve, and we have these performances. So, that was the big idea. Then came the programming. I love concerts that speak to people and where there’s something for everyone. A good meal and a good party have something for everyone. This program is the embodiment of that.
The idea, too, was for people to be able to bring the whole family to this concert, so it’s quick pace. Everything is within a 3 to 6-minute range, which keeps everything cooking with gas; it just rolls along. As you said, “Sounds of the Season” is something that we created this year and put on the schedule. It’s nothing that the orchestra has done before, the very first instance of this particular Holiday program.
MG: That’s one of the things that attracted my attention was it is unusual for us to have something that close to Christmas, when families gather; including people are traveling from out of town, gathering with their families here, who may not normally get to hear the Atlanta Symphony in any form or fashion, but they have an opportunity to get to hear the orchestra while visiting and celebrating with local family. It’s kind of like a big Christmas dinner.
WRL: That’s exactly it. It’s a tasty menu. Another thing too, which is so nice, is I love that we’re doing the 3:00 p.m. and an 8:00 p.m. concert because some people, will go to dinner beforehand, they’ll have the whole day with family and then they’ll cap it off with a nice concert. Whereas the rest of the crew will probably say, “Hey, why don’t we go to this at 3:00? Then we can go to dinner, and then we can play games and spend the rest of our night together.”
MG: A centerpiece of this “Sounds of the Season” program is the music from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, both the composer’s original version and in a big band re-imagining by jazz legends Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in an arrangement for symphony orchestra by Jeff Tyzik. How did you discover the Ellington/Strayhorn version of Nutcracker?
WRL: When I was growing up in Memphis, as a youngster, we would have all the traditional Nutcracker performances, but then there was something called Nut Remix, and it was the big band version, which is the one that is the Ellington/Strayhorn. I had no idea there was a version for orchestra until one of our arts administrators said, “Oh, I have this idea; what about this?” And, of course, at that time, the idea was to do the Tchaikovsky set together in a row, and then the Ellington/Strayhorn in the second half.
ASO associate conductor William R. Langley. (courtesy of the artist)
And I said, wait a minute, let’s make mini-biscuit sandwiches here, little groupings of them so that you hear in a way like for people not to know, maybe they’ve never heard Nutcracker before. So they hear a section in the original version and then a different iteration with the jazzy spin on it immediately after, and then we could give a little space with a song with Tammy McCann, our jazz vocalist. Then we can do another pair so you can hear them back to back and understand what somebody else did to it. One of our librarians, Sara Boguyos, said she had always wanted to do that, so she was thrilled by the idea and said there’s the Jeff Tyzik arrangement for full orchestra of the big band version. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Again, going back to what I told you earlier, I think it should be accessible to everyone. People may say, “Well, I’m not really a big classical music fan,” and they don’t know that classical music is amazing. But listen to it, jazz it up a little bit, and it might be a little more of your cup of tea. We get you in for all of it, and you get a whole smorgasbord of good things.
MG: Or they may already be a fan of a piece of classical music they heard somewhere but don’t know what it is.
WRL: Exactly. They’re hearing it while shopping around the holiday season, and maybe they’ve never heard it live. Recordings are lovely, but feeling the vibrations in a live concert in person is much better than anything the recording can do.
MG: So, basically, you’re doing what an associate conductor does: act as cover conductor for subscriptions concerts, ready to step in if the conductor becomes indisposed, lead community concerts, run-out concerts and holiday specials, and you also are music director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. It’s a broad spectrum of activity. I understand you’ve been working steadily toward this from an early age.
WRL: I will say this: I’m 33, and I’ve been doing this since I was 13. So this marks 20 years since I began studying to be a conductor.
MG: And here, those 20 years later, you’re the new associate conductor of the ASO.
WRL: And what an honor it is. I grew up listening to this orchestra’s recordings. Now, I stand before them and get to make music with these fabulous musicians. I tell people everywhere I go that this orchestra is incredibly generous. I joke that they would give you their lunch money if you ask. They are just so kind and so incredible. And what I love is that as our relationship deepens, there’s this immense amount of trust between us that is electrifying. I feel like whenever I’m in front of them, I’m flying in the best sense of the word because you can go anywhere, you can do anything, you can shape this phrase differently than you did the night before, and they’re right there ready to go there with you. There’s a reason this orchestra is one of the best. It’s not a secret that this orchestra is truly incredible. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- William R. Langley: williamrlangley.com
- Tammy McCann: tammymccann.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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