A fifth of Beethoven

Frotus Caper frags the classics

By Mark Scearce

The Atlantic Chamber Orchestra and The Frotus Caper, at The Pavilion, Portland, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. Tickets available at www.acopresents.com or call 836-0137.

FAB FIFTEEN: The Atlantic Chamber Orchestra shakes it up, baby.

Where there’s music there can be no evil.” I contemplate this quote of Cervantes as I sit in my new office in the USM School of Music having come to town to make music, it appears, in a time of evil. In the interest of full disclosure, I sit in the same chair where Lawrence Golan sat for 11 years before he left Maine for Denver earlier this summer. Golan is Artistic Director and Conductor of the Atlantic Chamber Orchestra and it is the ACO, with special guest The Frotus Caper, who will offer up music and spirits to ward off evil with their Beatles Over Beethoven amalgam Friday, November 2.

I spoke with Lawrence Golan last week — he now of the Mile High City and I in his former office — about his plans for this concert, his big move west, and Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan? Apparently, while American troops gather in this country for an action against Afghanistan, Golan contemplates his own conundrum: to accept the title of Principal Guest Conductor of the Bolshoi National Opera and Ballet Theatre of Uzbekistan or, er, perhaps not just yet.

While he misses much about Maine, Golan explains what beckoned him away. “It was the next stage of my career,” replies Golan, “shifting in emphasis, as it was, from being an orchestral violinist to a conductor. Here at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, I am Director of Orchestral Studies, Conductor of the school orchestra, and Professor of Conducting. It was the next step for me.”

Is he still playing the fiddle? “Sure, in fact I’ll be playing November 2 in Portland with the ACO in Beethoven’s Romance II in F major as well as conducting it!” Local die-hard fans of the PSO’s former concertmaster won’t want to miss that!

But juxtaposing the Beatles with Beethoven? The Portland-based rock band The Frotus Caper with the classical Atlantic Chamber Orchestra? “The conductor — in this case, me — and the artistic committee of the orchestra got together and bounced ideas around,” says Golan, “looking for ways to fulfill our sole mission of building new audiences.”

In the classical music world this is of course of chief concern: building new audiences before the older ones die out. It only makes good business sense. Yet there are at least three ways of attempting this. One, letting the music speak for itself and finding ways of altering the context of that music. Two, commissioning new, serious, vibrant music that speaks to its time and place. Or three, watering down the message so far until you reach a common denominator so low that it translates into box office cash. Needless to say, the latter road is well-worn in classical circles.

But this ACO-Frotus collaboration is neither fish nor fowl, neither classical nor pop, and clearly not intended for bigger piggies in their starched white shirts. “It’s just a lot of fun,” says Frotus frontman Joe Boucher. “It’s for those of us who wouldn’t normally go to a classical concert.”

The ACO has tried many avenues leading them towards their mission: presenting concerts in different contexts (nightclubs versus concert halls), bringing food and drink into the theatre itself (November 2 even includes a 7 p.m. pre-concert cocktail hour!), and relating the music to — quoting Maestro Golan again — ”other things audiences are more comfortable with like popular musics.”

But Beethoven and the Beatles? “With this concert we are juxtaposing arguably the most popular rock band — the Beatles — with arguably the greatest classical composer ever — Beethoven,” says Golan. Arguably indeed, though the alliteration’s nice.

The concert will begin with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture followed by Golan’s playing of the second Romance. Then Frotus takes the stage with the Beatles, first alone and then with orchestra in situ, accompanied, arranged, “breaking down barriers” in Golanspeak.

The second half is devoted to Beethoven exclusively — his infamous Fifth Symphony, a work so incestuous in its musical development that it has withstood greater cross-pollinations than this program. In short, it is nothing if not durable.

I share with Golan something Alex Ross wrote in the New Yorker recently: “Whenever the world goes up in flames, Beethoven makes perfect sense.” What does he think of this in light of his programming?

“Our concert was, of course, planned more than a year ago,” he says, “so we are not responding in our program to any of what has happened. But Beethoven’s Fifth certainly does deal with tragedy, with fate, and gradually, as the piece progresses, victory wins out in the end.”

Still it is the cash bar that keeps returning in conversation, the Cocktail Hour, the socializing, the “fun evening” stressed by all the participants. So it seems, with all the sadness in the world, many are seeking an evening out such as this to forget, for a moment, planes, trains, and anthrax strains.

And Uzbekistan, that land of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan? “I’m still trying to find a way to get over there in December,” says Golan, “but it’s not looking good.”

J. Mark Scearce is the new Resident Composer in the USM School of Music.