Bruce Sorrell has spent a great deal of his life thinking about Mozart, and it shows when he conducts the composer’s music: He has a special understanding of this most challenging of Classicists. Astonishingly, the founding music director of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra finds that he has never conducted Mozart’s iconic Requiem, and this week he plans to rectify that situation. For the final performance of the KCCO’s 23^rd season, on June 11th at Village Presbyterian Church, Bruce will lead top vocal soloists, a choir drawn from various churches, and the 30-piece Chamber Orchestra in a single performance of the unfinished 1791 masterpiece.

More than 200 years after its composition, the Requiem continues to fascinate listeners with its air of mystery, and to confound musicians with the artistic puzzles it presents. “The first problem is the fact that he died while he was writing it,” says Bruce with a laugh, “which gives it this sort of romantic aspect.” The story of the Requiem is well known: A visitor came to Mozart offering a handsome commission for a musical setting of the Requiem Mass, and the composer — always short of funds — accepted and set to work on the piece. Mozart was in poor health, though, despite being only 35, and as the composition of the dark-hued piece dragged on he apparently began to be haunted by the notion that he might indeed be writing a Requiem for himself.

Sure enough, he died that December with the piece incomplete, and his widow Constanze, eager to collect the rest of the commission fee, enlisted the services of composers and friends to bring it into some sort of deliverable shape. Controversy remains as to just how much of the finished product was by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (a friend and possibly also student of Mozart’s), Joseph von Eybler or Maximilian Stadler, but the end product is a work of such awe-inspiring dramatic force that it has become a concert favorite worldwide. “How truly remarkable that this was his last work,” Bruce says. “The operatic nature of it jumps out at you. I definitely think of this as an extension of Mozart’s dramatic voice, an area in which he was obviously tremendously gifted.”

More recent musicians have attempted their own completions of the Requiem, and today’s conductor can choose from a wide variety of editions. But Bruce says that for his first time out, at least, he wanted to use the Süssmayr version that is probably still the most commonly favored and performed. “For me it had to do with wanting to go with the one created by people that Mozart had around him,” he says. “They were doing this completion for Constanze, and that has a romantic feel in and of itself. These are people who were there when Mozart died. This is authentic to the period, and to the people he had trained and who were around him at the end.”

Bruce will be joined by top-drawer soloists: soprano Rebecca Lloyd, mezzo-soprano Denise Knowlton, tenor David Adams and bass-baritone John Stephens. The chorus of about 50 singers, prepared by Matthew Shepard, is drawn from choirs at Village Church, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The Requiem will be paired with Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto for chamber orchestra. Founded in 1987, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra consists of members of the Kansas City Symphony and other gifted musicians.

Masses in Mozart’s day were not composed for concert use, but rather to be performed in the context of a liturgical Mass, with individual musical movements inserted into the service at the correct moments. Audiences today are more accustomed to hearing Masses of Mozart or Haydn in concert settings than in a Catholic Mass, yet the removal of sacred works from their intended contexts is not without its aesthetic and/or religious problems. Nevertheless works like the Requiem transcend the confines of any single religion or faith, Bruce says. “The great works have a universality that everyone can find some way into. Everyone can understand the Day of Wrath, for example. That’s something that speaks to all — that fear of death, of falling short.”

And contrary to the conceit of the Peter Shaffer stage play Amadeus (and later, Milos Forman’s film adaptation of it), composer Antonio Salieri had no hand in the completion of the Requiem, nor did he poison Mozart. (In the film we are made to believe that Salieri is the mysterious commissioner of the piece, even though history tells us it was an envoy sent by a Count Franz von Walsegg soliciting a piece for his recently deceased wife — which he seemingly planned to pass off as his own.) “What a great story, though,” Bruce says of Amadeus, “and what a brilliant film. I loved Salieri talking about the Gran Partita as it’s being played in the other room, while Mozart gallivants on the floor, even if they do get the story somewhat skewed.”

Bruce’s reference is to a scene in which Salieri first realizes Mozart’s genius, even while resenting that God would bestow such gifts on someone he perceived as an infantile buffoon. “This was no composition by a performing monkey,” Salieri says, as he examines the score of the Partita’s Adagio, with its gorgeous, soaring oboe solo. “This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.”

For tickets to Mozart’s Requiem on June 11th, performed by conductor Bruce Sorrell and the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, call 816-235-6222 or go to www.kcchamberorchestra.org.

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KCCO SEASON FEATURES DUAL BICENTENNIAL FETES

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2010-2011 season, detailed below. Renewals for existing subscribers are available through June 4th. Call 816-960-1324.

October 2nd: Baroque by Candlelight. Repertoire to be announced (Old Mission United Methodist Church).

November 30th: Schumann and Chopin. Features pianists Lana and Slava Levin performing, respectively, Chopin’s Variations on “La ci darem la mano” and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, in celebration of the bicentennial of both composers’ birth (Unity Temple on the Plaza).

February 14th: Dvořák’s Serenade. Program includes that composer’s Serenade for Strings and a newly commissioned work by Kansas City-based Jean Ford Belmont (Old Mission United Methodist Church).

June 24th: Beethoven’s “Pastorale.” The composer’s Sixth Symphony is featured in this season finale, which also kicks off the Chamber Orchestra’s upcoming 25^th anniversary season.

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GREEN IN THEM THAR’ HILLS

Symphony in the Flint Hills this year features not only the live strains of the Kansas City Symphony echoing out over the verdant hills of Chase County, Kansas, but also the hickory twang of country superstar Lyle Lovett, who will sing a few tunes. Scheduled for June 12th with a rain date on June 13th, it’s an all-day experience that can include nature hikes, rides on horse-drawn covered wagons, dancing to old-time western music and presentations on prairie life. The Symphony performs a 90-minute concert beginning at 6:45 p.m., with a wide-ranging selection of music appropriate to the pastoral setting, conducted by associate conductor Steven Jarvi.

“Lyle Lovett shares our passion for the Tallgrass prairie,” says Emily Hunter, executive director of the Symphony in the Flint Hills. Lyle is a longtime friend of rancher Edward Bass, who is hosting this year’s event on his South Clements Pasture seven miles south of Cottonwood Falls (135 miles southwest of Kansas City, off of I-35 west of Emporia). “Lyle has many friends in Kansas and narrated the PBS special The Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie,” Emily says.

General admission tickets are sold out, but patron tickets are still available. The Patron Package includes two tickets with reserved concert seating, reserved parking, a pre-concert Patron reception and dinner, a gift certificate redeemable for commemorative items and access to the hospitality tent. Call 620-273-8955 or send email to emily@symphonyintheflinthills.org. For full information and photographs from previous years, go to www.symphonyintheflinthills.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Like many Southerners of her generation, choreographer Mary Pat Henry had a front row seat for the explosive events surrounding desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement. As a child in Columbus, South Carolina, she remembers being continually jolted by the racism she encountered all around her. For two years now she has grappled with reenacting some of those memories in dance, inspired partly by the art of William Christenberry — especially The Klan Room, his installation of paintings, drawings and photographs of Ku Klux Klan-related imagery — and by her own memories of growing up. The result, Southern Exposure, will receive its world premiere on May 21^st and 22^nd as part of the Williams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company’s spring program. It is the group’s first appearance ever on the attractive Spencer Theatre stage used by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and it will attempt to take advantage of its superior technological capabilities.

“This piece is like looking at the past as a dusty memory,” says Mary Pat, the company’s co-founder and artistic director, who is also a professor of dance at the UMKC Conservatory. “It looks back on a time that asked us to define ourselves,” she says, using pop, gospel, blues, jazz, and other music from the era.  Some of the events depicted in the 30-minute work are drawn from real events she experienced, she says — “voicing things I saw that impacted me.” Many are things that her dancers, a racially diverse group of professionals in their 20s and 30s, have only read or heard about. But she says they feel the emotional content of the piece profoundly — a piece whose impact is heightened by the use of projected images of the period, some quite graphic.

Southern Exposure is just part of the Wylliams/Henry’s spring program, which, as usual, serves up a provocative mix. Desire by Gary Abbott of Chicago’s Deeply Rooted Productions explores the relationship between love, desire and the primal need for physical contact. Paula Weber’s To Each Her Own (premiere) traces the emotional and spiritual development of four very different women. Ruth Barnes’s Chloe/Christina (premiere) takes Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World as a point of departure, using live and recorded video to show the dissonance between image and dance. And Mary Pat’s Moore in Time (a revival) also uses video to explore the relationship of dancers to the shapes and ideas created by Henry Moore’s iconic sculptures (many of which grace the lawn of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art). For tickets call 816-235-6222.

In memoriam, with fireworks and cannons

If there is a single annual outdoor event that has galvanized Kansas City’s open air fans, it has to be the Kansas City Symphony’s Celebration at the Station held each Memorial Day weekend outside Union Station. The setting is perfect for the occasion, with a panoramic view of not just our landmark 1914 Station but also the magnificent National World War I Monument. It’s one of the most satisfying things you can do outdoors for free here, and each year tens of thousands of area residents make a day of it. This year’s Bank of America Celebration at the Station is on May 30^th, with a rain date of May 31^st. Music director Michael Stern leads a program including patriotic music, orchestral classics and a fireworks finale set to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Special guests this year include Time for Three, an innovative ensemble of two violins and double bass that blends classical, country, bluegrass and jazz idioms with brilliant panache. Formed at the Curtis Institute of Music, this boundary-bending trio consists of violinists Zachary De Pue and Nicolas Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer. The activities of these Curtis-trained musicians have ranged widely, from performances with major orchestras to high-profile TV appearances. Their fresh and tasteful blend is difficult to describe, but click here for a sampling. Also on the bill is Mark Shultz, a Colby, Kansas, native who is today one of the superstars of Christian music. Click here to view the video to his nostalgic hit song “Letters from War.” Mark is known for easy-going songs that give testament to his faith and to the inner workings of God in his life.

The grounds open at 3 p.m., and families are welcome to bring blankets, chairs and picnic baskets. Food will be available for purchase inside and outside the Station, where of course early birds can view the impressive Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit. Pre-concert entertainment begins at 4:30 p.m. with the United States Air Force’s Brass in Blue. The concert proper begins at 7:30 p.m., enhanced by a large HD screen for close-ups of the artists. The concert will also be shown live in HD on KCPT-TV (Channel 19) beginning at 7:30 p.m., with a rebroadcast to be scheduled for the July 4^th weekend. For complete event details go to www.celebrationatthestation.com.

Symphony players form new chamber music series

Speaking of the Kansas City Symphony, its energetic players are always looking for new ways of bringing music to our community, in both formal and informal settings. On May 20^th and June 3^rd, they perform the first two concerts of what the Symphony and principal trombonist (and series artistic adviser) Roger Oyster hope will become a regular chamber-music series at Webster House, the renovated schoolhouse-turned-restaurant-and-antique-gallery poised at the edge of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Each of the 30-minute mini-concerts of the new Webster House Salon Series with the Kansas City Symphony begins at 6:15 p.m. — right after the restaurant’s wonderful happy hour, which runs from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. — and includes music by the same composers to be featured at that weekend’s regular Symphony concerts.

On May 20^th, the featured work is Debussy’s String Quartet — that week’s Symphony concert also will include that composer’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun — with violinists Sunho Kim and David Repking, violist Jenifer Richison and cellist Lawrence Figg. On June 3^rd the featured works are the Andante cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s First String Quartet and Prokofiev’s Quintet, Op. 39, for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass. Featured on June 3^rd are violinist Anne-Marie Brown and Tomoko Iguchi, violist Christine Grossman, cellist Lawrence Figg, oboist Barbara Bishop, clarinetist Raymond Santos, and bassist Ed Paulsen. For more information about the new series, go to www.websterhousekc.com or call 816-221-4713. For Symphony tickets and information call 816-471-0400 or to www.kcsymphony.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net. Also read Paul’s columns in the print version of The Independent, available for $45 a year at 816-471-2800.

The Kansas City Ballet has scored a home run with its spring program that opened May 6 at the Lyric Theatre, with an appealing lineup ranging from classical ballet to Balanchine-does-jazz, from Todd Bolender to two adventurous new ballets receiving their world premieres. It was a gratifying conclusion to an erratic 2009-2010 season that has often struggled to show off the solidest work, and the best dancing, that this company can offer. And it featured what must surely be one of the strongest new pieces the company has commissioned in its 53-year history.

Most traditional was the loopy, episodic Donizetti Pas de Deux by the company’s former artistic director, Todd Bolender, danced on Thursday by Aisling Hill-Connor and Luke Luzicka. (Casts vary throughout the run.) Dressed in black splashed with gold, and with Hill-Connor en pointe, the couple essentially danced a set of variations, individually and together, that evoked equal parts classical ballet and Balanchine-flavored looseness. The result — an excerpt from a larger work, La Favorita — came off as a playful take on balletic conventions, more a series of flourishes than a linear dance that moved from beginning to end.

The Bolender was paired with one of the two new pieces, A Solo in Nine Parts by the gifted and at times controversial young choreographer Jessica Lang. Set to a Violin Concerto by Antonio Vivaldi, it juxtaposes nine dancers in a series of ensembles that are broken up by individual solos corresponding to violin solo passages in the concerto — played with assurance by Kansas City Symphony assistant concertmaster Sunho Kim in the orchestra pit. With pale ivory-yellow light making the floor glow with luminescence (thanks to the savvy, sensitive lighting design by Kirk Bookman), and casual garb in shades of grey (courtesy of costume designer and former Ballet dancer Lisa Choules), the dancers executed solos befitting their inner character — now quirky and elaborate, now fluid and passionate. The outer movements flanked an ethereal central slow piece, with Rachel Coats, Nadia Iozzo, Charles Martin and Marcus Otis waging an elegant but physical battle of the sexes. The finale found the company pushing up air in a chaotic, spinning chorus. A Solo in Nine Parts is ingeniously structured and intelligently worked-out, even if its substance seems vaguely busy and heavy on rapid-fire arm movements.

The clear audience favorite was George Balanchine’s Who Cares? set to 11 songs by George Gershwin in overwrought orchestrations by Hershy Kay — an elegant if lightweight tribute to the roaring ’20s (and early ’30s) that was receiving its company premiere. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Balanchine’s balletic heritage clashed with the flippant soft-shoe of the era but at times it felt that these strange bedfellows were made to toss and turn uncomfortably rather than merge organically. Still, there were plenty of classy visual effects (such as the lively urban-scene drop of M. Kay Barrell) and achingly elegant dance. In the opening female quintet (“Somebody Loves Me”), ballet mixes playfully with Ziegfeld Follies, and in the brilliant duet of “The Man I Love,” Michael Eaton yearns to the “the one” and the exquisitely coy Kimberly Cowen is just not sure.

But the real treat of the evening was Toni Pimble’s Concerto Grosso, a conceptual and visual feast set to Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 (played deftly by the Symphony and nimble pianist Dan Velicer, under Ramona Pansegrau’s baton.). Pimble has fully absorbed Bloch’s stately neo-Baroque style, which she expresses through a miniature compendium of classical and contemporary dance moves. Jennifer Carroll has dressed the dancers in pale, muted blues, violets and purples, seven couples who move through pools of light that shift from aquamarine to blues and, at the end, pale golds. Bookman’s lighting provides an essential ethereal quality: the drop is lit to suggest, perhaps, beach fading upward to sky. The Prelude was a vigorous romp with Charles Martin and six men (who were not always evenly spaced on Thursday), followed by a Dirge in which Angelina Sansone and Gabriel Davidsson displayed sharp control, their languid movements suggesting at times amorous touches, at times a feeling of deep mourning. The Pastorale juxtaposed tart solos with rustic ensembles, and the final Fugue began with dancers entering one by one from stage left and performing an individual variation on the subject; a later reiteration placed the entrances at stage right, lending the whole a sense of poise and balance.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

As recently as 20 years ago it was rare to find works by women on the programs of professional ballet companies. That’s changing, albeit slowly. On May 6 the Kansas City Ballet opens its spring program with new works by not one but two of the most sought-after choreographers in America — both of whom just happen to be women. Artistic director William Whitener says he never set out to make a Ladies’ Night at the Ballet. “If there had been a blind study in which I was just shown samples of these people’s choreography, without knowing if they were by a man or a woman, I would have picked these choreographers. It happens that these two caught my attention quite a number of years ago, and we’ve been waiting for the right time to present their works.”

From May 6^th through the 9^th the Ballet presents Toni Pimble’s Concerto Grosso and Jessica Lang’s A Solo in Nine Parts, on a program that also includes Todd Bolender’s Donizetti Pas de Deux and the company’s first-ever performance of George Balanchine’s Who Cares? And although the Balanchine piece (to music of the Gershwins) has dominated the company’s marketing materials, in terms of larger impact on the ballet world, it is these two premieres that are most likely to count as a real achievement for the company, and for its profile as a young, fresh company that curates everything from the classics to leading contemporary choreographers.

Gender has never been a major factor in determining what a choreographer’s work will look like, William says. “It’s about the person: who they’ve worked with and what their life experiences have brought them.” British-born Toni is a product of the Royal Academy of Dance, and early in her career she danced with three German ballet companies. The work of Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan and Antony Tudor has made its mark, William says. (Toni adds Jiří Kylián to the list) “I can see how that tradition informed her as a choreographer today, and yet she’s absorbed qualities from dance in general.” Toni acknowledges she has now been in the U.S. for longer than she ever lived in Europe, but she says “you never leave your roots entirely. The education you have as a young person is the basis for forming you as a person.”

Toni co-founded the Eugene Ballet Company in Oregon in 1978 and has cultivated it into a fine company. Along the way she has choreograph some 60 works, a remarkable achievement for someone running a company. She says she long recognized the potential of Ernst Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 for dance, but it remained on a back burner until William asked her to make a 25-minute ballet for performance with live orchestra. And listening to the neo-Baroque score from 1925 again, she found that she “loved it just as much as before.”

Like many of her works, Concerto Grosso is a response to the pure impulse of the music, Toni says. “There’s no narrative, it’s just free association. It’s what the music says to me.” If there is a “Pimble” style, she says, it is one that focuses on “creating a lyrical, fluid style. I always try to let the music be my ultimate guide choreographically.” She says the Kansas City dancers were “very receptive, very open to the style of the piece, and seemed to be having a good time.”

Jessica began as a product of the Juilliard School, where she studied under Benjamin Harkarvy. After graduation she became a member of Twyla Tharp’s company “THARP!” But she says that, while her early experience with Twyla had a deep impact on her as a dancer, as a choreographer it served chiefly as a jumping-off point. “I used to go in the studio and improvise, but I don’t do that any more.” Before arriving in the studio she tries to absorb the music entirely. “I know where I want the piece to go. But I wait for the dancers to be there, and I improvise in from of them, and we make the dance together.” Choreographing is about “seeing what my tools can do, about the combination of what’s going to make them look good and what’s going to fulfill my vision.”

That vision has become much-desired among ballet companies: Jessica has created dozens of work for such groups as American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Washington Ballet, and others. A Solo in Nine Parts was inspired by a Vivaldi Violin Concerto that contains nine virtuosic solo-violin passages spread through its standard three-movement musical structure. But instead of having a single dancer perform all nine solos, she has spread them out, she says, “breaking the solos up among the chorus, and making each solo fit the dancer personality-wise — their different intensities, what they can do physically.”

Have female choreographers made the headway they should have by now? Toni and Jessica are of somewhat differing opinions. Toni says women have made progress, and she is confident that they will continue to choreograph and assume positions of leadership. Jessica feels that women have a distance to go in the choreographic world, and says that the problem often grows from a tradition in which boys in ballet are pushed forward and given confidence — which can later lead them to become artistic directors and choreographers — while girls are constantly fighting a sea of competitors. “I think if we really want to make changes, we need to focus on planting the idea in young girls that there is life after dance, and work on building up that confidence.”

Gender politics aside, though, Toni and Jessica agree they want to be recognized not as “women choreographers” but for their work, period. “I happen to be a woman who creates dance,” Jessica says. “I don’t think about ‘me’ when I’m working: I think about the dance that I’m making.”

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Dolls that come to life, a village love story, iconic ballet moves: Coppélia is hard to resist even in a so-so production. The version by the Moscow Festival Ballet, presented here on May 1^st by the Harriman-Jewell Series, was a considerable cut above the average, with youthful dancers, faux-naïve set designs, and fine dancing in the Russian tradition. If the Folly Theater’s tiny stage presented a bit of a challenge, especially with scenery that ate up perhaps too music of the usable floor space, the choreography of this 19^th-century classic had been adapted for smaller spaces, so that only the full-company numbers such as that of the Act 3 finale seemed perilously crowded.

The lead dancers were excellent, beginning with Marianna Chemalina as Swanhilde, the young woman vying for the affection of her beloved Franz. She sparkled white-hot in her opening solo, displaying disciplined technique and a flair for the comedic. (Her pirouettes at the end of Act 3 were also remarkable, and drew sizeable applause.) Ruslan Mukhambetkaliev was the muscular, tightly wound Franz, with thighs that reminded you of Baryshnikov and leaps and fouettes filled with languid, carefree vigor. Elena Aytuganova was the Doll, Coppélia, made so lifelike by the Geppetto-like Coppelius that Franz, spying her in the upper balcony of the doll-maker’s house, believes her to be real. Aytuganova managed to mix the traditional mechanical motions with a certain warmth that perhaps suggested she was a bit human. Dancers Ekaterina Egorova, Olena Antsupova and Nadezhda Illarionova were precise in the Act 3 variations, but beyond that the company looked a tad green, perhaps young enough to have recently completed their training.

The Act 1 set included three wings that had to be crammed so close together that half of the Folly balcony — unfortunately the half I was sitting in — could not even see the Doll sitting in the upper ledge of Coppelius’ house. More appealing was the toy shop of Act 2, filled with bric-a-brac and with four dolls that danced, each to his or her own music — Chinese, Arabian, Scottish and Spanish. Coppélia is of course the star of all the dolls, and when the doll-maker enters he casts a spell on Franz which will supposedly breathe life into her wooden body. It is, of course, Swanhilde, who has donned the doll’s costume in order to have some fun with the men.

The festive “party scene” of Act 3 is often omitted, as it exists solely to set up nearly an hour of variations. But it is a must for ballet fans, and its inclusion is part of Festival Ballet founder Sergei Radchenko’s desire to create a Coppélia that is as close as possible to Alexander Gorski’s original. It was a notable effort, even if the costumes — some attractive enough by themselves — at times clashed visually. There is one other star of Coppélia that deserves mention, and that is the excellent score by Léo Delibes: Subtle and solidly tuneful throughout, it is about the closest thing to a Tchaikovsky score you’ll find among these 19^th-century efforts. It was, of course, played on recording, but in an especially fine performance by the Festival Ballet’s own Orchestra.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.