Goochland - What's In a Name?

Although the Richmond Symphony has the beautiful Carpenter Theatre at CenterStage to call home for most of its concerts, keeping in touch with our neighbors outside of the City of Richmond is important. One way we do this is through the Metro Collection - a series of concerts that take place in venues across the metro Richmond area.

The first concert of this year's Metro Collection series is coming up this Friday at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Goochland.

Yep, Goochland.

Now, I am not a native to Central Virginia and since moving here three years ago, I have been both fascinated and amused by this county name. To be sure, there are plenty of interesting names around the Richmond region - Chippenham Parkway, Midlothian, Powhite Parkway (pronounced pow-height or po-white? The debate rages on!), and the like. But Goochland has always struck me as the most peculiar.

So, in honor of our first Metro Collection series concert of the season, I decided to find out exactly how Goochland got its strange moniker and share it with all of you.

Turns out that the origin of this unusual name is a man: Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet, who served as Governor of Virginia from 1727-1749. In 1727, Sir Gooch petitioned the House of Burgesses to create a new county named to honor himself - and thus Goochland was born.


Naming counties, towns - even states after oneself wasn't unusual in the Colonial period. In fact, Sir Gooch eventually married Rebecca Staunton who - you guessed it - had her own city named after her: Staunton, Virignia.

Hope to see you all in Sir Gooch's former stomping grounds this Friday, October 1 for the Metro Collection Series concert!

~Kathryn

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40 years and going strong!

The experience of the Richmond Symphony would not be complete without our wonderful chorus. This chorus is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Yes, in 1971, a young man named James Erb prepared the first ever chorus of the Richmond Symphony to sing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis under the direction of the great conductor Robert Shaw. You’ll have to come back in May to experience our recreation of that event on our 8th Masterworks concert.

Each and every member of the Richmond Symphony Chorus is a volunteer. During the day, they are teachers, lawyers, managers, entrepreneurs, and more! According to our calculations, each singer donates about 55 rehearsals or performances a year. At 2.5 hours per rehearsal, that’s 137.5 hours per year (not including at-home study time, driving time, or the chorus parties!). Times that by an average of 130 singers per year, and that’s 17,875 hours of donated time per year. Times THAT by 40years, and you get 715,000 hours of donated time!

On Sept 25th as the chorus walks on stage to perform Beethoven's 9th, they will be joining forces with the orchestra to celebrate a wonderful 40 years of collaborative and mutual love of music. Here's a quick slideshow of some of the wonderful members of the chorus on and off stage. Congrats folks on 40 wonderful years!

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Ode To Joy!

The Richmond Symphony's season-opening concert will feature Beethoven's 9th and its big hit! Ode To Joy is one of the most iconic orchestral and choral pieces of all time. This composition has become one of the most recognizable pieces of music of all time! We could go on and on as to why, but in order to grasp the scope of how important a piece this is we thought we'd let you see its many uses in our lives throughout the years.

Enjoy!




John McClane is no stranger to this piece of music



Road to Joy!



meep meep



Beethoven's Wineth?



At the forefront of technology



Ed, Edd, and Eddy!



This one's just too cute to not put up!

Come catch this epic piece performed live by our fantastic orchestra and chorus on Sept 25th and 26th only!!!

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Sonic Panoply

son·ic   /ˈsɒnɪk/ [son-ik]
–adjective
1. of or pertaining to sound.

pan·o·ply   /ˈpænəpli/
[pan-uh-plee]
–noun, plural -plies.
1. a wide-ranging and impressive array or display: the dazzling panoply of the maharaja's procession; the panoply of European history.
2. a complete suit of armor.

Mason Bates is a river-city native and is coming back to town for the world premier of his latest orchestral creation, Sonic Panoply!

Mason has received praises from all over the country on his blending of orchestral and electronica music. For the opening concert on Sept 25, 2010 Mason has composed a brand new piece that will be heard for the first time by a full orchestra. We asked Mason to share some of this thoughts on this project.

"What's it like creating a piece for the orchestra that ignited my passion for the orchestra as a kid? It's like having your hair set on fire. Inspiration was not playing coy: instantly I had a panoply of ideas hit me. So I christened the piece Sonic Panoply, attracted to the word's two definitions of 'magnificent abundance' and 'ceremonial armor.' And now we have a piece - can't wait to hear it!"

Y-E-S!! We can’t wait to hear it either Mason! See you in a few weeks as we kick open our season with this world premier!

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Violin time!

Here's a little info about our fun friend, the violin.

Did you know:

The violin was officially designed by Andrea Amati, an Italian lute maker. Amati was asked to build the violin as a lighter alternative to the lyre. Then along came Antonio Stradivari! He is responsible for creating possibly the best violin in the world, aptly named the Stradivarius. Since all this was happening in the mid 1500s there are no photos of Mr. Stradivari. Regardless, his work on his creation has lasted over 500 years! Many classical musicians prefer to play these violins still!

Here's Antonio hard at work!

Moving forward to today though, modern violins are still being made all the time. The average violin is made of either spruce or maple and consists of about 70 pieces of wood! The Richmond Symphony uses several violins in all of our concerts including 96 violins at last season's "Come and Play" concert. That means at one time we had 384 strings being plucked and bowed! And that's just the violins. That's a lot of strings!!

We've had some pretty amazing violinists come through and perform with us too. For example, last season we were honored to have Gil Shaham perform with the orchestra. Mr. Shaham performs all over the world and we were so glad to have him as a part of our season. Check out this clip to see the master at work.

The season starts in 16 days. Come check out our violin section and see what 500 years worth of work has lead to right here in Richmond, VA

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Meet Erin R. Freeman

Hi! I’m Erin, and I’m the Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony!

Generally, my job is to conduct a lot of concerts with the Richmond Symphony, lead the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra, and conduct and prepare the Richmond Symphony Chorus. Also, I spend a lot of my time sitting in rehearsals, watching and listening while the music director conducts. Officially, I’m “covering” – waiting for that moment when the conductor on the podium gets sick and I have to dramatically step in and save the day. (I like Steven, however, so I would never wish him unwell.)

Our recent production of Beethoven Lives Upstairs – part of our 2009-2010 Lollipops series. This year, we kick off the series with “Phantoms of the Orchestra.”

But, enough of what I do while I’m at CenterStage. You can just come to a concert and check it out in person! Here’s what I do in my off time:

I study – According to one teacher I had, it takes one hour of study time to learn one minute of music – and that’s if the music is straight forward, has no solo part, and doesn’t have words to learn. So, a typical Beethoven symphony would take about 40 full hours to learn. A Masterworks concert would take a minimum 90 hours to learn. If you have a 40-minute complex high Romantic or Modern piece (think Strauss or Mahler), add at least 20 hours. If you have text, add 10 – 20 hours depending on the language and number of words, etc.

Me studying Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis for our May 2011 performance. You see my iPhone (it’s never far from my side) and two scores. The small one is mine. The large one is the one Robert Shaw used when he conducted the first performance of the Richmond Symphony Chorus in 1971!

I cook – a lot – for a lot of people. My favorites are spicy sausage and broccoli rabe pasta, salmon with couscous, and anything with Swiss Chard (see below). I particularly enjoy the local produce that is available here in Virginia!

Here’s a dinner I cooked a while ago. Notice: it’s served on a stack of music. (I think that’s Brahms in the orange!)

And… I kick people – no, not the patrons or the musicians – but my fellow practitioners of taekwondo. I workout with the George Washington University club in DC, and I help teach a class here at VCU when I have time. I actually find a lot of similarities between the two arts – conducting and taekwondo, but perhaps I’ll save that for another post. In fact, a paper I wrote on that very idea is about to be published in the University of California at Berkeley Martial Arts Monograph!


Here I am in my other world: doing a flying kick in West Virginia a while back, and in the George Washington University gym celebrating receiving my black belt. (With me are a business woman, a structural engineer, and a lawyer. That’s a scary group!)

So, that’s about all. Now, I’m off to hear some Youth Orchestra auditions and prepare for the second rehearsal of the Symphony Chorus. Oh, and I have to finish that Chicken I’m cooking.

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