Sometimes, it takes moving heaven and Earth to make something happen. For the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, the effort comes just short of a miracle but is certainly a titanic amount.
The orchestra’s concert series opener this weekend will ignite with Mozart’s Jupiter symphony and then launch into another world with Mahler’s Titan symphony. To perform Mahler’s work requires undaunted spirit, skilled carpentry, an extra set of borrowed percussion, at least 79 musicians, a conductor who believes even the sky poses no limit, and a venue where altering its stage is permitted.
“I’m 77, and all my life when you go for something, someone always says we can’t do that,” said John Teller, the orchestra’s executive director. “But when I talked to the people at the Franco Center, they had a different attitude.”
Midcoast performs four times a year at the Franco Center in Lewiston, and has had a long-standing relationship with the concert hall. But for this performance, a bigger stage was needed.
“We have seen over time that the audience has grown each time Midcoast has performed here,” said Louis Morin, executive director of the Franco Center. “For any town or any city that wants to rebound like the city of Lewiston, having a resident orchestra is a feather in its cap. So we agreed to extend the stage a few feet on either end.”
Morin said that Teller showed up in his overalls one day. Over a week’s time, Teller and the Franco Center’s staff managed to enlarge a stage that would accommodate an ensemble that includes a second set of timpani, additional brass, and plenty of stage space so that every musician can be seen by the audience.
“The interesting thing about this concert is that the first piece is Mozart’s last symphony, the so-called Jupiter, and the second is Mahler’s fist symphony, labeled the Titan,” said Edward Walworth, who plays bassoon and contrabassoon for Midcoast.
As for the Mozart piece, Teller said it “culminates all of the good things he did in his life.”
“While the first half is the shorter Mozart, the second half is truly titanic,” said Walworth. “There are two French horns in Mozart. Mahler uses seven and has them stand up toward the end. All the woodwind sections expand. It remains to be seen whether our orchestra will fit on the stage.”
Teller, who built his own house and knows how to handle a hammer as well as he does the oboe, has no doubts. “Our conductor, Rohan Smith, is a fantastic musicians in his own right. He’s in his 10th year with us and, as soon as he came, we started getting better. He said it was time to (try) something bigger than we’ve ever tried before.”
Teller noted that since Smith took the baton for Midcoast, the roster has grown from 45 to 90 musicians over the past decade. Besides filling the role of conductor locally, Smith serves as the Music Department chair at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. As a violinist, Smith has performed regularly with the various orchestras worldwide.
Midcoast musicians received the music for Gustav Mahler’s Titan, formally titled Symphony No. 1 in D Major, over the summer.
“We weren’t going to be able to do this with just one rehearsal a week,” Teller said. “The musicians really spent a lot of time, and even at our first rehearsal we were amazed that we could struggle through.”
A second performance will be 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Orion Performing Arts Center at Mt. Ararat Middle School in Topsham
What: Midcoast Symphony Orchestra
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday,
Where: Franco Center, 46 Cedar St. Lewiston
Tickets: General Admission $20; free for anyone younger than 18 (Payment at the door is by cash or check only; by phone 846-5378)
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