The Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra opens its season this weekend with a concert aimed at “Celebrating Our Homelands.”
The group will premiere a a new concerto by Navajo composer Connor Chee, featuring Yakama bassoonist Jacqueline Wilson.
The concert is Saturday evening at 7:30 in North Idaho College’s Schuler Performing Arts Center.
SPR’s Owen Henderson spoke with Music Director Danh Pham about the upcoming performance.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
OWEN HENDERSON: Let's start with the basics. What are audience members in for at this Saturday's concert?
DANH PHAM: The entire season, all five concerts of the Coeur d'Alene Symphony Orchestra season, is dubbed “The Community.” Each one of our performances this year celebrates a sense of community that we have within the city and the community of Coeur d'Alene.
Specifically, this Saturday is entitled “Celebrating Our Homelands.” Every one of our pieces draws very closely to the composer of that piece's homeland or native land. It is a variety of diverse composers of different backgrounds and different parts of musical history.
OH: Can you tell me a little bit about your two featured artists, Dr. Jacqueline Wilson and Connor Chee?
DP: Connor Chee is actually our featured living composer on this concert. Connor Chee is a Native American composer. He and Jacqui are actually kind of a duo… In the sense that Jacqui — who is my colleague here at Washington State University, she's assistant professor of bassoon here and a well-known performing artist and scholar. She commissioned Connor Chee, Native American composer, for a specific piece for her to perform. That piece is the Concerto for Bassoon and String Orchestra.
It is a wonderful partnership in the sense that Jacqui, being a Native American herself — she is a great promoter and champion of Native American composers and their music. She wanted a specific piece written for her that she could essentially tour with amongst various different regional orchestras. It's been extremely, extremely successful.
That's kind of the ideal scenario for a living composer wanting their music to be performed, but not only once, but multiple times. And with Connor being a Native American composer, having a Native American championing his music is really kind of the best of all worlds.
This is a piece that was really put on my radar, I would say a little over a year ago. Jacqui said, ‘This is a Native American composer that I want to put in the spotlight and have it on everyone's radar.’ And she's achieved that.
OH: So you've got a series of ‘dialogues’ before your performances. This one will feature Dr. Wilson instead of you. So what are you hoping to hear from her about?
DP: Not only is she performing a third of our program — because the middle part of her program really puts the spotlight on Jacqui. She gets to talk about why she's doing this, how important her background [is], and the premise of this project — her background, her beliefs in doing Native American music, what she's done thus far.
Her accomplishment of championing Native American composers is an extremely long one. And it's one that I think is really so admirable. And so from a social cause, but also from a musical one, those are two such important things from such an important artist.
OH: A question that gets raised a lot in the arts community is why this work? Why now? And so I want to pose that to you. Why these works with these featured artists? And why now? How does this fit into your theme of community for the season?
DP: Jacqui is a local and regional star, which I think is on her rocketship-way to being a national and international one, if she hasn't already.
And in this situation, putting pieces that she knows well, that she champions. And immediately, her affiliation with this work, this project — she is a part of the Yakama Tribe. And with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, that homeland aspect is something that is so incredibly important to the Coeur d'Alene community. So to celebrate the different aspects of the community in this situation, the Native American tribe was something that I felt really important for our audience and for our musicians to be able to put new music in front of them.
But to have one that's so close to something that should be closer to us as an organization, I think is really important. There's obviously — a very objective aspect to this is we want to bring in different audience members. You always want to bring in younger audiences.
You do want to diversify your audience, just like you want to diversify the pieces that you're performing. It's to educate not only the musicians, but also the community as well, too.
It is an opportunity to draw in members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe to put a piece like this and to put a performer like this and potentially bring in new people that have never heard classical music before, Native American music before, symphony music before. We want to make sure that it appeals to people in that sense.
OH: Dan Pham, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.
DP: Absolutely, Owen. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity
