Adam Boyles will end his three-year tenure with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra by performing the world premiere of the orchestra's latest and possibly biggest commissioned work.
His final concerts also will include the Southern Arizona premiere of Peter Boyer's sweeping multimedia orchestral piece "Ellis Island: The Dream of America" and Leonard Bernstein's "On the Town: Three Dance Episodes."
The 2007-08 season finale's all-American theme kicks off with the world premiere of Paul Crabtree's "Vegas," commissioned by SASO with the support of Tom and Carolyn Cochran. It is Crabtree's first full orchestral work, Boyles said.
Boyles said the orchestra was looking for a lighthearted piece for full orchestra, and Crabtree, who splits his time between Tucson and San Francisco, delivered with a piece that re-creates the cha-ching soundscape of Sin City.
There are quotations from Frank Sinatra and subtle fragments of popular tunes throughout, and in the background the excited buzz of slot machines. The piece's subtlety creates the biggest challenge for Boyles' ensemble.
"I knew looking at the piece it was going to be a great challenge for us because it's so subtle," Boyles said. "There's slight shifts in color, and people pop in and out of the piece quickly."
The concerts on Sunday and June 8 mark Boyles' final farewell after leading the orchestra for three seasons — this last one from afar. He left Tucson last fall to conduct the orchestra at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but retained his music director title and some administrative duties. In Boyles' absence, fledgling conductor Martin Majkut stepped in as resident conductor to lead rehearsals while the SASO Board of Directors auditioned for a new music director.
Standing before his orchestra last week for the first time in a year was like slipping back into comfortable shoes, Boyles said.
"It felt very normal," he said earlier this week. "It felt as though it was business as usual. I stepped back in time and it was a regular Tuesday night at Tucson High and we were having rehearsal. It didn't feel like any time had passed."
The program also includes Bernstein's "On the Town," a piece conceived initially as the 1940s Jerome Robbins ballet "Fancy Free." The piece, a fanciful romp about a trio of sailors on leave in New York, morphed into the Broadway musical "On the Town," which was made into a film a few years later starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.
"It's such fun. . . . It's only a 10-minute piece, but there's a wide variety of sound. There's swing, Looney Tunes, loud big-band, slow wistful," Boyles said. "It's great fun."
The highlight of the concerts might be the moving Boyer piece, which celebrates the American immigrant experience and the American dream. Boyer was inspired to write it by the hallmark Ellis Island Oral History Project, which collected stories from immigrants who had passed through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1940.
Boyer pulled seven of those immigrants stories, which he complements with archival images from Ellis Island. In some performances since the piece debuted in April 2002, actors have given voice to the narratives. The piece has been performed more than 90 times and was recorded in 2005.
"It felt as though it was business as usual. I stepped back in time and it was a regular Tuesday night at Tucson High and we were having rehearsal. It didn't feel like any time had passed."
— Adam Boyles
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra music director
If You go
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in concert
• When and where: 3 p.m. Sunday at the DesertView Performing Arts Center, 39900 S. Clubhouse Drive, SaddleBrooke; 3 p.m. June 8 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte, near West Ina and North Oracle roads.
• Tickets: $15 at the door.
• Details: 323-7166.
• Program: Paul Crabtree's "Vegas" (world premiere). Leonard Bernstein's "On the Town: Three Dance Episodes." Peter Boyer's "Ellis Island: The Dream of America."
