After a dizzying, two-year hiring process that saw five different conducting finalists come to town for concerts with the MSO, Butorac's ascent of the podium should return a sense of stable direction to the local orchestra.
For those longtime patrons who might have worried that the fresh-faced conductor would shake things up overmuch, this weekend's concert, and especially the coming season's recently announced repertoire, will likely offer sweet relief.
“I look at this season as sort of like getting to know somebody for the first time,” said Butorac in a telephone interview last week. “You start with familiar subjects so that you can establish a common ground of trust, and then perhaps later you move on to more challenging subjects.”
Indeed, you needn't be conversational in the deepest subtleties of the orchestral repertoire in order to recognize the names of composers represented in the coming season. There's Beethoven and Mozart, Mahler and Tchaikovsky. Even if you haven't heard of Saint-Saens or Mendelssohn, you've likely heard their music; it's the kind of broadly appealing music that has a way of showing up in commercials and soundtracks fairly often.
Likewise, orchestral pops fans who worried that Butorac might throw a curve into this weekend's concert in Caras Park can rest assured: The valley will be alive with “The Sound of Music” and other familiar staples of the light concert repertoire.
“I want to begin with things that are appealing to the broadest audience, both in the pops concert and in the subscription season,” said Butorac. “If you have any interest in what an orchestra does, this will be a good year to come to the concerts and perhaps become acquainted with what a great orchestra there is in Missoula.”
This weekend's concert will certainly offer that opportunity. Now in its third year, the MSO's concert in Caras Park regularly draws thousands of people downtown for an evening of fun, familiar music. The only thing different about this year's concert is that it won't feature a major work from the core classical repertoire.
Two years ago, the MSO built the concert around a performance of George Gershwin's blockbuster concerto for piano, “Rhapsody in Blue,” with local jazz pianist David Morgenroth at the keyboard. Last year, the centerpiece of the program was Piotr Tchaikovsky's explosive � Overture.”
This year, the big highlight of the show will likely be a performance of music from the movie, “Pirates of the Carribean.” Only one composer whose work often appears on masterwork-type classical concerts, Aaron Copland, will be represented in the program. The orchestra will perform one movement from his suite for orchestra, “Rodeo.”
“For this concert I wanted to present pieces that were really fun to listen to, that people can relate to from the movies or pop culture,” said Butorac. “We have a very special encore planned but I can't give it away because it's top secret. I'm really excited about that in particular.”
Music on the concert includes the “Trisch Trasch Polka” by Johann Strauss Jr.; music from the movie “Gladiator,” by Hans Zimmer; “Moon River” by Henry Mancini; and the “Tango, Por una Cabeza,” from the soundtrack of “Scent of a Woman” by Carlos Gardel.
“You could compare this concert to a little jambalaya, a goulash of music,” said Butorac. “We have a wide variety of classical music, film music, dance music, all different types of music.”
What this weekend's concert lacks for basic orchestral repertoire, the coming subscription season makes up, and then some. Each concert features at least one cornerstone work of the basic orchestral repertoire. Three out of the top 15 most-performed orchestral works in America (according to a 2005-2006 study by the American Symphony Orchestra League) will be represented on the season, including the No. 1 most-performed piece (Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7) and the No. 3 piece (Piotr Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5).
While the names of the composers and even the names of some of the works in the coming season are probably familiar to many, Butorac notes that none of the pieces programmed on the masterworks concerts has been heard at an MSO concert in at least 10 years.
“For an orchestra of our size where we basically have four full masterworks concerts per year, we don't have the luxury to explore as much repertoire as we would like to,” said Butorac. “But the positive side of that is, it's a great luxury to be able to program a truly major work on each concert and not get tiring, still be creative in the music we present.”
Fans of the contemporary and the close-to-home will likely feel neglected during the coming season. The most recently written piece programmed in the coming season (excluding the Christmas pops concert) is a set of four, short dances from Alberto Ginastera's 1941 composition, “Estancia.” Only two other works composed during the 20th century - Gabriel Faure's “Requiem” and Manuel De Falla's “Ritual Fire Dance” - are featured during the season. No American composers are featured during the season.
Instead, the overwhelming majority of the works were written during the so-called Romantic period of the 19th century, in Europe. Only works by Beethoven and Mozart predate that era.
Butorac said he had hoped to feature some newer music during the season. Music by Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, and Osvaldo Golijov was considered, but ultimately didn't work into the mix.
“You have to look at each concert individually and see how everything fits together - the major symphony or other long piece, the concerto, and whatever fits along with those,” explained Butorac. “This season it just didn't work out to have any of those newer pieces on any of the concerts because of the various things we were trying to juggle, but I hope to bring that music into future seasons.”
To be sure, a limiting factor in how the season was programmed was the short time-frame available for planning. Butorac was not officially hired until late May, by which time most orchestras have already pretty much wrapped up their programming for the forthcoming season. Securing rental agreements for sheet music and hiring guest soloists - a process that normally spreads out over the course of months - was therefore crammed into a few weeks. The orchestra still isn't at a point where it can announce the soloist who will be featured in the holiday concerts in December.
“We're almost there in terms of having a contract, but we can't say who that is until we have it in writing,” said Butorac.
And in any event, anyone who enjoys the full sound of a symphony orchestra could hardly complain about the highlights ahead. It's been more than 10 years, for example, since the MSO performed one of Gustav Mahler's symphonies; that will change in epic fashion in the last concert of the season, when the orchestra performs his First Symphony, aptly nicknamed the “Titan” Symphony.
“These will all be concerts that you will walk away with a tune in your head and with a sense of experiencing something very, very exciting,” said Butorac. “I'm just looking forward to making great music with the orchestra; that's the number one reason I'm coming to Missoula.”
Reach Joe Nickell at 523-5358 or at jnickell@missoulian.com.
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