The Music School Festival Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, under the baton of Chautauqua School of Music Artistic and Music Director Timothy Muffitt, preform Wynton Marsalis’ “All Rise” Wednesday in the Amphitheater.
When playing his part in Wynton Marsalis’ “All Rise,” the word that comes to mind for School of Music student Angel Ruiz is “community.” It’s a word relevant to more than just tonight’s performance — Marsalis’ work aims to translate our differences through music, creating a cohesive future built of collaboration in a rapidly developing global community.
At 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater, trumpet player Ruiz will join his fellow students of the Music School Festival Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Timothy Muffitt, along with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Marsalis himself for a second performance of “All Rise.” With the first performance having just occurred Wednesday evening, the musicians get an opportunity to reflect and experience the performance in a new way tonight; for Muffitt, a second performance can be “really quite satisfying,” with all the time and effort the musicians put into a singular piece.
The MSFO’s season usually ends earlier in the summer, but with the scope of Marsalis’ “All Rise” during Week Nine, coupled with live recordings from PBS film crews on site this week for the documentary “Chautauqua At 150: Wynton Marsalis’ All Rise,” the students’ season shifted a week.
“Here’s a chance for (School of Music students) to collaborate with people whose whole world is the jazz world,” Muffitt said. “That’s just another kind of really wonderful artistic, musical cross-pollination — plus, anytime we work with a composer, it’s eye opening.”
For Ruiz, playing with Marsalis is mindblowing and a dream come true, he said. Growing up listening to Marsalis’ music, Ruiz considers the composer and jazz legend one of his heroes. He’s anticipating “getting to feel what (Marsalis) feels” through engaging with his music.
“Having the experience to perform one of his compositions, I can see how every detail is very precise; that’s something that I really enjoy and appreciate from him,” Ruiz said. “I want to engage with all (of the MSFO students), and I am enjoying playing with them. That’s something that makes me very happy, because music is all about sharing experiences, sharing ideas, sharing sounds and community.”
Students first received the music of “All Rise” two weeks ago to begin rehearsing. Many, like Ruiz, have been listening to and studying the work for much longer.
“I took time to engage with the piece and give it the honor that it deserves. … I believe it’s a piece that we have to respect. We have to approach in the most meaningful way that we can because it’s going to be a great production,” Ruiz said. “We should appreciate the work and the time that (JLCO and Marsalis) are taking.”
Born and raised in Venezuela, Ruiz began playing trumpet at 8 with El Sistema, a publicly financed music education program — an “amazing program,” he said, that words are short to describe. The program focuses on sincere engagement and improvement, addressing and fixing the details, which is something he values about the MSFO, as well.
“If we need to change or improve something, we just do it right away, and that’s something that I really like,” Ruiz said. “That says a lot about the musicians that are here today.”
Muffitt selected third-year MSFO violinist Jameson Darcy to be concertmaster for the two performances of “All Rise,” which Darcy said was both humbling and encouraging. They find that group communication around “All Rise” is vital for cohesion — rather than leading by force.
In their role, Darcy focuses on what needs to be brought to the table by each section, as everything should sound fluid. They were completely blown away listening to the piece for the first time, they said, as the whole piece retains continuity, yet each movement sounds like 12 miniature ideas.
“This piece is a totally exemplary attack,” Darcy said. “Each (movement) has its own characteristic, and that means that there’s so many possibilities of what we can do to express our ideas and to interpret things and realize the shapes that are there.”
“All Rise” is a 12-movement composition for big band, choir, and symphony orchestra; each movement represents different moments of growth, setbacks, and redemption in our lives. The first four movements tackle birth and self-discovery; the second four focus on mistakes, pain, sacrifice and redemption; the last section has to do with maturity and joy. The violinists’ part is 73 pages of music alone, with the fourth movement being 13 out of those 73 pages; the first thing Darcy told their section was to learn the first, fourth and ninth movements to provide clarity in bringing a project of this magnitude together. In doing “All Rise” justice, Darcy said they wake up with a knot in their stomach but a clear-headedness for channeling the passion the piece evokes.
In programming the back-to-back nights of “All Rise,” Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer Deborah Sunya Moore was intentional in uplifting the MSFO as a creative partner for JLCO and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus.
“Both Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Chautauqua Institution are about intergenerational experiences and having faith and determination that youth, the younger generation, need to be an integral part of our deepest hopes, of our most creative projects,” Moore said. “That type of synergy between generations not only creates a certain excitement and energy, but it also creates partnership paths for the future.”
