Paradigm eager to start 9th season

Founder and music director Joel Rosenberg feels that the 2003-04 Paradigm Concerts series, which begins its ninth season Friday, will be among its best.

"I'm thrilled with the line-up of concerts we have planned," Rosenberg said, adding that the new season will be a little different than in the past.

For one thing, there will be no opera. Instead, the four-concert series will open and conclude with the Paradigm Chamber Orchestra playing music from the baroque period to the 21st century. And the Paradigm Trio (Kelly Parkinson, violin; Jed Moss, piano; and Rosenberg, viola) will fill out the season with two concerts of works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Brahms.

Rosenberg said he's particularly indebted to members of the Paradigm Chamber Orchestra for the success of the series as a whole. "They've made the series what it is today."

Friday's opener features the orchestra in a concert that will include the premiere of Concertino for Viola and Chamber Orchestra by Utah composer William Wallace. The 15-minute work had its genesis in the one-movement "Intermezzo" for viola and orchestra that Wallace wrote for Rosenberg about two years ago. "After he wrote 'Intermezzo,' Bill said that he wanted to expand on it."

"Intermezzo" is now the first movement of the three-movement Concertino. Musically, the new work reflects both classical and romantic qualities and the composer's interest in rhythmic complexities. "The first and last movements are harmonically simple but rhythmically complicated," Rosenberg explained. "The last movement is a tarantella that's almost like a perpetual motion — there are hardly any rests for the violist." The second movement is more romantic in character, and all of the thematic material in the work is based on the music of the opening movement.

The other major work at next week's concert is J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major. "This is the largest of the Brandenburgs, and the most diverse in instrumentation," Rosenberg said. Scored for a large solo group comprising violin, two French horns, three oboes and bassoon, the concerto is a showcase for the soloists. "But it's really a virtuoso piece for the horns — it's a real marathon for them."

So much so, in fact, that the parts weren't always played by horns. According to Rosenberg, there weren't any capable horn players around when Bach wrote the concerto. The parts instead were taken by trumpeters, who were accustomed to playing virtuosic music.