Joe Tornquist
By John Tierney
Special to the News-Record
When Joe Tornquist was just about to take his turn as concertmaster of the Cali Music School Orchestra during his graduate studies at Montclair State University, all rehearsals and performances were suddenly put on hold.
By the time classes resumed post-pandemic, Tornquist had graduated.
So it’s all the sweeter that he’ll be concertmaster for the kick-off of the South Orange Symphony’s 75th Anniversary Season on Sunday, Oct. 27, at 3 p.m., at the South Orange Middle School.
“This will actually be my first concert as concertmaster of any orchestra,” said Tornquist, a 2014 graduate of Columbia High School. “It means a lot, having grown up in our two towns and graduated from CHS.”
The orchestra’s Fall concert features Johannes Brahms’s magnificent “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor.”
“It’s such a profoundly beautiful and emotional work,” said symphony conductor Susan Haig. “Each of the four movements is a peak experience and absolutely wonderful to work on. Joe has been giving helpful tips to the strings, and conveys a natural sense of phrasing and leadership.”
Many consider the 4th Symphony to be Brahms’s greatest work. When first performed in Vienna in 1886, the musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic gave Brahms a special backstage ovation.
The program includes works from two Russian composers who took Romanticism in a different direction, developing a nationalist Russian orchestral music tradition.
“These are really entertaining pieces, fun to play and something quite different to listen to,” said Tornquist. “The violins get a real workout, and so does everyone else – all 56 of us.”
The “Tsar’s Bride Overture,” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, draws on Russian folk music and Eastern rhythms and shows the composer’s mastery of brilliant orchestration.
After the Overture comes music by a star pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov – Alesander Glazunov – who achieved great success in melding the exotic Russian folk style with classical European themes.
“Autumn,” from “The Seasons,” is a sequence of dance scenes including a boisterous “bacchanale” (drinking party), with contrasting dance solos. The Petit Adagio is the heart of the work, with exquisite romantic melodies for strings and woodwinds, and virtuosic accompaniment by the harp.
The concert is free, with open seating, and young families with kids age 4 and up are welcome. Parking is available on Ridgewood Road and in the lot behind the Middle School. The concert runs from 3 pm to 4:40, with a 15-minute intermission and a 75th anniversary tribute.
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