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Pro Arte opens season on an up beat
By T. J. Medrek

The gorgeous fall weather and the Head of the Charles didn’t keep the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra’s loyal audience away from Sanders Theatre in Cambridge yesterday afternoon. The occasion was the farewell concert of Principal Conductor Gisèle Ben-Dor.

The music was unfailingly upbeat, from the sparkling Rossini overture at the beginning through the concluding First Symphony of Beethoven, a work brimming with exuberance and humor. And at the end, Pro Arte Executive Director Ryan Fleur announced that the orchestra had voted Ben-Dor – who joined the orchestra as music director in 1991 – the title conductor emerita, and hoped she’d come back often as a guest.

Ben-Dor said a simple “Thank you all” and walked offstage with her characteristic no-nonsense stride, as someone in the audience shouted, “We love you,” as if speaking for everyone in the hall.

The conductor’s departure has been in the works since she gave up the director’s title and became principal conductor. As Fleur said, “We knew we wouldn’t be able to keep you here forever,” and they were right. And with this concert, the first of Pro Arte’s season, Ben-Dor showed us why.

Her firmly planted feet supporting an upper body in constant motion, Ben-Dor led this fine group of players with energy, confidence and the kind of musicality in which every note, every phrase means something. Nothing is just played – it’s performed .

That’s how she made the 199-year-old Beethoven sound as new as the U.S. premiere of Almas Serkebayev’s “Shertpe Kuy.” Based on Kazakh fold music and with a beat meant to imitate trotting horses, the Serkebayev came off as an immediately appealing kind of Eastern hoe-down. The composer, originally from the former U.S.S.R., lives in Randolph and was present for the performance.

Of the two Boston premieres on the program, the finer was Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas’ 1932 “Colorines,” a vivid evocation of the chaos and exuberance – and, yes, noise – of urban life with a lovely, lyrical woodwind section at its center.

Heitor Villa-Lobos’ 1956 Harmonica Concerto, however, seemed pretty ordinary, except for the oddity of the solo instrument, played here by Robert Bonfiglio. Nothing if not a showman, the square-jawed, Fabio-haired harmonica virtuoso finished off the program’s first half by thanking Ben-Dor and the orchestra, pointing out his mom in the audience (after all, his name is “good son” in Italian), playing three encores and making sure we knew he’d be in the lobby during intermission to sign programs and CDs.

Pro Arte pleasures: celestial, yet down-to-earth
By Susan Larson

Maestro Gisèle Ben-Dor did not start this concert with a bang. With an undulation of her batonless hand that was reminiscent of an Indonesian dancer, she asked her orchestra to join with a high sweet tone that had been sounding since the world began. So commences Aaron Jay Kernis’ “Musica Celestis for Strings,” which he has described as “inspired by medieval angels singing God’s praises eternally.” The achingly pure sustained opening, with high tones grazing one another and floating away again, sounded like the music of the spheres.

Eternity is a long time, however. Despite a radiant string sound and tender violin solos by Kristina Nilsson and Pattison Story, the piece lapsed back to earth. The middle section’s whooshing sounds (the passing of fast-lane angels?), an accelerando and the unfulfilled threat of a fugue did not cause the piece to take wing and catch the light again.

Pianist Soomi Lee, who has been active in this area as a chamber player and teacher, made her debut with Pro Arte in Chopin’s F-minor Concerto. Her opening gambit came off as rather stiff, as if the piano were fighting her. Rubato hesitated rather than lingered, and fast notes blurred together. During tuttis she seemed overmatched by an orchestration notorious for its too-subordinate role.

However, in the perfumed love-dream of the adagio Lee showed that she is a poet. This soaring bel canto aria was inspired by the adolescent Chopin’s crush on a young singer, and the extravagant decorations of the big tune gave Lee a chance to shatter the tender stream of melody into shimmering sprays of coloratura. In the recitative, over trembling strings her impassioned cries and confessions were lovingly shaped, wanting only more dynamic diversity at the loud end.

The mazurka movement presented some togetherness problems for the orchestra, but elicited flashes of temperament from Lee. She caught fire and played well, but the swagger and self-display of the Polish dance eluded her until the final moments.

The orchestra took us on a dazzling, sparks-flying ride through Haydn’s Symphony 104. Ben-Dor has wonderful physical eloquence (her elbows speak volumes) and the group mirrored her gestural vocabulary in sound. Everything they did had wit, color and sculptural shape – even the silences. The coy stretchings of time and surprising depths of feeling in the great trio of the minuet called up the goose bumps. The final movement’s earth-sprung peasant tune and countertheme of courtly melancholy were turned inside out and upside down in a development of such health and humanity that you felt utterly satisfied – until you heard the recap and coda and realized that you had seriously underestimated your capacity for joy.

The Boston Globe
By Ellen Pfeifer

It isn’t easy to assess the achievement and legacy of Gisèle Ben-Dor’s tenure with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra because the relationship between orchestra and conductor is so atypical.

Since Pro Arte is a cooperative, the artistic authority of the principal conductor (the title “music director” was eliminated several years ago) is extremely circumscribed. Unlike a traditional music director, Ben-Dor shared responsibility for repertory, soloists, and personnel, and in fact served at the pleasure of the self-governing orchestra. Therefore, one cannot attribute to her the overall level of playing, the quality or interest of the music performed, or the distinction of soloists and guest conductors. From an outsider’s perspective, one could only comment on individual programs Ben-Dor conducted. However, on the occasion of Ben-Dor’s final concert as principal conductor with Pro Arte, concertmaster Kristina Nilsson praised Ben-Dor’s nine-year regime. “She was a shining star in our midst,” she said. “We were the beneficiaries of her terrific energy and her unique insights into music she loves.”

Nilsson acknowledged that Ben-Dor was often frustrated by the cooperative orchestra’s democratic form of government and attributed Ben-Dor’s lack of involvement in Boston musical life to that frustration. Still, “she brought deep knowledge and a profound love of music and sheer joy to rehearsals and performances.” Underscoring this assessment, the orchestra named Ben-Dor “Conductor Emerita.”

At yesterday’s concert, Ben-Dor performed an odd, quirky program that exemplified those qualities of exoticism, joy, and energy praised by her musician colleagues. Framed by witty, live-wire performances of Rossini’s Overture to “il Signor Bruschino” and the Beethoven First Symphony, the program featured works influenced by folk traditions.

Silvestre Revueltas, a Mexican composer Ben-Dor has championed in recent years, is known (if at all) for his Ivesian iconoclasm, his political and musical Marxism. But to judge by “Colorines,” the composer’s deliberate primitivism emerged from the same primeval forest as Stravinsky’s “Ride of Spring,” with a brief detour to the urban jungle of Gershwin’s “American in Paris.”

Almas Serkebayev, a native of the Kazakh region of the former USSR, is a recent emigre to Randolph. His “Shertpe Kuy,” heard in its US premiere, evokes the ancient nomadic ideal of perpetual travel and the sound of the dombra, a traditional string instrument. With its pulsating ostinati, it also evokes Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.”

Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Harmonica Concerto proved the real curiosity on the program. The soloist, Robert Bonfiglio, displayed lots of hair, chiseled features, deep knee bends, and an astonishing, if improbable, virtuosity. The cinematic music supplied him with lots of opportunities for agility and color, and he made the harmonica sound alternately like an antique reed instrument and an accordion. Responding to the ovation that followed, Bonfiglio – good son that he is – introduced his mother from the stage. Then, supremely confident that we wanted more, he played three bluesy encores.

The Boston Globe
By Anthony Tommasini

… Ben-Dor is an exceptionally lively and intelligent musician and an accomplished technician. … At the concert’s conclusion they paid her the highest compliment musicians can bestow, refusing her urgings to stand up and share the applause.

And if on-stage Ben-Dor is a handsome, vital, charismatic presence, this seems not an extra dividend but rather part of the reason she is so effective a musician.

… With Ben-Dor at the helm and Gunther Schuller installed as conductor laureate, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra couldn’t be in better shape for the future.

Ben-Dor shows range at close of Israel salute
Saturday, May 16, 1998

The citywide salute to Israel’s half-century of independence closed with a concert Sunday that hauled a wide net through the sea of Israeli and Jewish music. At the Academy of Music, Gisèle Ben-Dor led the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, a choir and soloists in music that ranged from a Leonard Bernstein song to heroic Handel choruses.

The polyglot conductor was making her local debut, a difficult task given the variety and number of works programmed. A Mozart aria was placed next to music by Louis Gesensway, and Ben-Dor had to follow mezzo-soprano Rinat Shahm from a Handel aria immediately to Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.”

She stood, however, as a sturdy, unflappable commander who appeared, sometimes through sheer will, to unify and move things, and sometimes through enthusiasm to reach some high points. She proved a flexible and helpful accompanist with Shaham and with cellist Jeffery Solow, and clearly had the gift for drawing concentrated and musical singing from the chorus assembled from the Mendelssohn Club and Singing City choirs.

The fragmentary programming worked against the idea of building toward some dramatic high point, but the final few pieces, including “Hatikvah” and “Haleluya” by Kobi Oshrat established an emotional tone missing from the earlier selections.

Ben-Dor made a large thing from Gesensway’s Suite on Jewish Themes . The piece, by the late Latvian-born Philadelphia Orchestra violinist, used good dance tunes in simple ways to create strong instrumental writing. The long viola song in the first selection summarized the best of the evening’s playing.

Shaham sang an aria from Mozart’s Davide penitente , from Handel oratorios and songs by Bernstein and Gershwin. The long line of “In Jehovah’s awful sight,” from Handel’s Deborah , focused the best of her singing.

In Tzvi Avni’s Kaddish , Solow played a strongly singing performance. Ben-Dor moved the orchestra firmly from piece to piece, stressing clear rhythms and urging playing marked by character. She began with the premiere of David Saturen’s Fanfare Halleluia , a piece that concisely used orchestra and chorus to evoke music from Eastern Europe and Jewish ritual. (No additional performance.)

Silvestre Revueltas Music Festival
January 20-23, 2000

Santa Barbara, California is the location for a three-day music festival to celebrate the 100th birthday of Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. Classic films, lectures, manuscripts, live chamber and symphonic music will be held at various locations. The festival takes place from Thursday, January 20 through Sunday, January 23, 2000.

Three historic Mexican films for which Revueltas composed the music scores will be shown with English subtitles: Vamos Con Pancho Villa (1933) ; La Noche de Los Mayas (1939). Redes (1935), with the Santa Barbara Symphony playing the live film score under the music direction of conductor Gisele Ben-Dor.

The festival includes lectures by Revueltas scholar Professor Roberto Kolb-Neuhaus of the University of Mexico, and a number of orchestral and chamber works, including a children’s concert with a quartet, accompanied by life-size puppets from Mexico. Although designed specifically for a Revueltas performance and music score, they have never performed in the United States.

In addition, the festival will have manuscripts, photos and music scores of Revueltas’ on display at the Santa Barbara Public Library and the Karpeles Manuscript Library.

Tapes, books and CD’s will be available, including the Santa Barbara Symphony’s world premiere recording of La Coronela , Itinerarios andColorines, with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Although noted by many as one of the 20th Century’s greatest composers–compared frequently to Manuel De Falla and Copland–Revueltas is perhaps one of the least known to serious music and film audiences.

Born in Mexico on December 31, 1899, Revueltas died at the age of 40, after a prolific decade of creativity and compositional activity that reflects the modernism and nationalism of that period in the Americas. Thirty plus pieces in approximately ten years encompass many large orchestral scores, a half dozen film scores, music for smaller ensembles, four string quartets and songs.

Revueltas’ compositions are often described as original and passionate. They are universal in scope, as well as deeply inspired by the folklore roots of Mexico.

He studied and performed in Mexico and the United States. He also toured and performed throughout Spain during their revolution, and was deeply moved by it. Revueltas wrote extensive letters and essays on his reflections of life, revolution and music. He also identified heavily with the artist Vincent Van Gogh, and described how he dreamed of music as “color, sculpture and movement.”

The festival is being sponsored in part by The Mexican Cultural Institute, LA; The Mexican Consulate, Oxnard; The University of California, Santa Barbara; The Santa Barbara Symphony, the Santa Barbara Public Library, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce.

Seats are limited at some events and locations. For more information and a brochure call Lynn Holley, project director at 805-898-1443.

The Los Angeles Times
By Mark Swed

… Ben-Dor is a star on the rise and very much ready for prime time.

… She is also just the conductor we have been waiting for to make a really persuasive case for Latin composers like Villa-Lobos and Revueltas, whose music should be heard more than it is.

… She is a conductor with a streak of wildness in her, and she let the demon in Revueltas out.

… The only Dvorak I know to match what she had in mind here was the kind of violent Dvorak that Furtwangler conducted in Berlin during World War II. The Eighth is usually thought of as a lyrical symphony. And Ben-Dor did not shy away from big dug-in sweeps of lyricism. She even brought back portamento, that sentimental sliding from string to string, now discredited.

But lyricism with Ben-Dor is calm before the storm … the conductor proved relentless. The sense of urgency of this performance was downright astounding.

… There is surely no holding back a conductor with so ferocious a talent.

Conductor Steps In, Unrehearsed
By James R. Oestreich

It is often a matter of curiosity, for those of us who generally hear the first or second outing of a run, how well the performances might have stood up until the end, but the press of other events seldom allows time to find out. The New York Philharmonic series just ended was hardly typical, with its change of conductor for the final performance, yet that unusual aspect made it seem all the more worthwhile to check in again.

Gisèle Ben-Dor, a young Uruguayan, is developing an odd specialty at the Philharmonic: conducting without rehearsal. She did so in 1993, as a late substitute for Kurt Masur, and did so again on Tuesday evening at Avery Fisher Hall, as a replacement for Daniele Gatti, after Ivan Fischer had rehearsed the program and conducted the early performances.

Her interpretations of Beethoven’s “Coriolan” Overture and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, while they differed little in detail from Mr. Fischer’s on Friday afternoon, tended to be more dynamic, less inclined to linger over nuance and coloration. For the most part, the orchestra followed her forward urgings. If Ms. Ben-Dor had merely survived in a work as complex as the Mahler … she would have done well; she did more, making the interpretation … her own

­­­GINASTERA Glosses on Themes of Pablo Casals: op. 46 for string quintet and string orchestra¹; op. 48 for orchestra¹. Variaciones concertantes² • Gisèle Ben-Dor, cond; ¹London SO: ² Israel CO •

NAXOS 8.572249 (58:46)

Naxos is doing well by Ginastera. The label has recorded much of his chamber music, including the complete string quartets, and reissued two significant recordings of his orchestral music. This is the second of those reissues, recorded in 1995 and originally available on the Koch label.

The main point of interest in this program is the inclusion of both version of the late masterwork Glosses on Themes of Pablo Casals. The version for strings came first, written to celebrate the centenary of the beloved Catalan cellist in I975. (Ginastera’s cellist wife, Aurora, had been one of Casals’ disciples.) Two years later Rostropovich, then at the helm of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C.. asked the composer for a new work and the result was the second version, fully scored and considerably re-thought in orchestral terms, so much so that it warranted a different opus number.

The work is more of an imaginative deconstruction and decoration of themes than a straight­forward set of variations, hence the title “glosses”. Several pieces by Casals are quoted: in the first movement, a solemn chorale from his Prayer to  the Virgin of Montserrat, an ardent love song in the second movement, and in the penultimate fourth movement the cellist’s well-known encore piece, Song of the Birds. In this work, Ginastera’s musical interests come together: His distant Catalan roots and (in the concluding sardana) Argentinean dance rhythms along with the technical intricacies of his late orchestral style, bracingly avant-garde at the time.

While the orchestral version is a true showpiece with many fascinating and effective moments—I love the (Gabrieli-style brass. scoring of the choral theme in the first movement—the string version has greater strength and unity. The work’s free-form structure feels less piecemeal when held together by string timbres. I know of a couple of fine recordings of full orchestral version postdating this one, but none of the string version. It is an asset to be able to compare both on one disc, and a salutary reminder of the  composer’s fastidious ear for texture. The London Symphony play beautifully for Gisèle Ben-Dor, a specialist in Latin American music.

In between the two Glosses comes a set of genuine variations. The Variaciones Concertantes for chamber orchestra of 1953. The original theme is built on a chord of rising fourths, equating to the open strings of a guitar. A string ensemble provides the backdrop to a series of variations featuring one or two wind soloists per variation. All the forces come together in the final movement, which employs a favorite stamping dance rhythm of the composer, the Malambo. A popular and oft-recorded work, it receives a fine performance from the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

This has always been one of the most satisfying discs in the Ginastera catalog. If you missed it the first time around, you now have a bargain opportunity to remedy that error.  Phillip Scott

266 Fanfare July/August 2010

Santiago de Chile
March 2012

“A brilliant, crisp version of Bizet’s popular opera’s excerpts…. Conducting “ Scheherezade” by heart, Gisele Ben-Dor assured the balance between the impeccable soloists and the potency of the entire ensemble, according to the composer’s intentions…not an exclusively feminine version, but rather a very human one.