'Certified Organic' Organ Symphonies at Civic and Mello Center This Weekend

The Santa Cruz Symphony, under the direction of John Larry Granger who retires after this season, will serve up a feast for the ears in Santa Cruz Saturday and Watsonville Sunday with a turn toward an instrument that doesn't get enough attention outside of church.

An Allen Protégé organ will be trucked from San Francisco to Santa Cruz for the guest artist of “Certified Organic," virtuoso Jonathan Dimmock.

From Romance to Dissonance

The orchestra will open the concert with Delius’s Daybreak (part I of the Florida Suite). The music opens softly and slowly, restfully. Naturally it swells and broadens as the sun rises. Satisfying and romantic, “Daybreak is easy listening and not overly cerebral,” said Granger.

The Poulenc Organ Concerto that follows is in high contrast.

“The dissonance says, ‘Wait! We’re going to change things up’!” said Granger in an interview. “Parts are rhythmical and jazzy, using a church instrument in ways that are un-churchlike. Poulenc’s music stirred up a bit of trouble for composers who had gotten sanctimonious.”

Mr. Dimmock will shine in this showcase for organ.

Composer With Highest I.Q.

"Now we return to the romantic," said Granger. “Musicologists say Saint Saens had the highest IQ of the composers, which doesn’t always show in his music. He regretted that people loved his smaller pieces."

Adapted as If I Had Words in the Babe soundtrack, people recognize melodic lines from the Saint Saens' Organ Symphony.

"People are blown away by it," said Granger. "It encapsulates every emotion there is."

Composer Gives His All

The piece will appeal to the new listener and the educated ear. It is the kind of soaring music that means “symphony” – four hands playing the sweetly ascending and descending single piano as the organ’s color adds oceans of sound. All strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion participate in achieving Saint Saen’s noblest aspiration, music commemorating a dear friend killed in a tragic accident.

Saint Saens said "I gave everything to (this symphony). What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." His majestic piece is considered the premier symphonic work for organ.

Featured soloist Jonathan Dimmock, the San Francisco Symphony organist who has released 30 CDs, has founded Art to the Nations to inspire harmonious political and social discourse through art based on shared humanity.

Time To Say Goodbye

Maestro Granger will conduct symphony performances in March and May of this season before he retires this year.

“My arms are tired,” quipped the conductor who has wielded the baton for 43 years. In his time concerts have grown from six to 10 per year. Getting rid of the “us and them” mentality between residents of Watsonville and Santa Cruz has been important to him. He's proud the symphony is equally in north and south county.

Local musicians, like Aaron Miller and Chetan Tierra, have grown into professional soloists. “I’m flattered to have had that involvement,” Granger said. An annual collaboration has been established with the White Album Ensemble, to be performed on June 2 this year.

Murray Walker was the youth orchestra conductor when Granger arrived. Before the economy affected participation, the youth orchestra grew from 17 to 70 under Granger’s direction.

Granger will not pick his successor. Some 200 candidates have applied, and a search committee will invite five to conduct one performance each next year, from which they will make their selection.

“Don’t go, Larry!” was frequently heard when Granger announced his retirement. Popular with musicians and audiences, his passionate musical intelligence and leadership will be missed.

Free Pre-Concert Talks Open To Public

Before both performances, at 7 p.m. in the Civic Auditorium, prior to the Saturday evening concert; and at 1 p.m. in the Watsonville , prior to the Sunday matinee concert, pre-concert talks are free and open to all.

Tickets

Plucking The Harp Of The Heart

Symphonic music plucks strings in the heart reminding listeners of depths and heights not touched in ordinary daily life. Live music played by rather radiant individuals who have spent years learning to coax true sound from their instruments is an experience  not available electronically.

But turn off all devices! Don't make Maestro Granger stop the symphony as did Alan Gilbert of the N. Y. Philharmonic on January 10. Even though Alec Baldwin had reminded the audience to silence their cells, it was during the emotional Mahler Ninth that a cell phone’s marimba tone played over and over and over, halting the music.