Most Arkansas wouldn’t know 81-year-old John Williams if they saw him strolling Fayetteville’s Dickson Street. Yet they really do know him very well in their hearts and minds through his gifts of enduring and endearing music that virtually everyone across the planet recognizes.
Remember the scores from Star Wars, or Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, or Jurrasic Park, Schindler’s List, Superman, E.T., Saving Private Ryan, or how about that menacing “dum, dum, dum, dum” introduction to Jaws? Those and much more captivating, magnificent and memorable music stemmed from the imagination and talent of John Williams.
Inside a packed Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville last weekend, another appreciative packed audience for the final performance of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas’ second season under the impassioned wand of maestro Paul Haas witnessed a tribute to Williams and his other classics.
Williams, you see, didn’t stop with creating memorable scores for films. He created the stirring themes for NBC Nightly News, NBC Sunday Night Football and four Olympiads. What amazing memories this one man has bestowed on us over the decades.
Director Terry Hicks, one of Northwest Arkansas’ own musical prodigies, led the SoNA Singers, an ensemble of accomplished singers from across Northwest Arkansas, during the performance, which included Williams’ spiritual, “LookDown, Lord.”
It was a credit to Williams, whose resume includes five Academy Awards and 21 Grammys; he sent a personal letter to SoNA expressing his regards and gratitude for “performing so much of my music this evening” as well as the crowd that had gathered to enjoy it. Williams also signed a baton that Haas used toconduct the evening’s first piece from Jaws.
Much of Williams’ music was in collaboration with epic films produced by the phenomenon we know as Steven Spielberg, with whom he’s had a lengthy relationship.
Saturday night, the score from the 1993 Spielberg film Schindler’s List filled the audience’s hearts and minds with almost unbearably sweet and poignant strains played by concertmaster Winona Fifield. The film told of German Oskar Schindler’s efforts to save over 1,000 Polish refugees bound for Nazi death camps. The haunting melody flowed from Fifield’s instrument, bringing many to their feet afterwards in appreciation of an effort that undoubtedly would have prompted the great violinist Itzhak Perlman (who performed the film version) to rise in applause alongside them. I noticed one woman several seats down dabbing at her eyes as the music coaxed an overflow of emotion throughout the concert hall.
And so 17 classics of music unfolded as the final curtain dropped on yet another highly successful So-NA season.
The entertaining and imaginative Haas, a nationally acclaimed director, devotes considerable time and energy to creating unique and exciting performances I’ve enjoyed, along with all the others, including this thoroughly entertaining tribute to Williams and his wealth of remarkable music.
Haas had promised the finale would be an “unforgettable sonic experience.” To me, that could pretty well describe the imminently indefatigable Haas himself.
I’m now officially convinced if artists could create a bobble-maestro doll in tribute to a conductor who twists, turns, leaps and dips, this man from Manhattan would be the idealmodel. I believe I saw him leap off his feet during the rousing score from Superman.
Haas doesn’t simply conduct these melodies. This man with a broad, endearing smile and a refreshingly dry sense of humor becomes one with the flourishes, swirls and rhythms. He also enjoys glancing over his shoulder at the audience and winking, or grinning, or closing the evening in a Darth Vader mask as his army in formal black attire plays “The Imperial March” from Star Wars.
And while each of the artists on stage performed with the impressive precision of a Rolex watch, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention little Dorothy Valencia, who makes the biggest noises of all sprinting back and forth in her corner of the stage with an assortment of percussion instruments.
I was amazed watching her scurry from the drums to the latest addition to SoNA’s ensemble of equipment, a giant gong called a tam-tam. She and Fernando Valencia, Dallas Tucker and C.J. Morris also were managing the chimes, a xylophone, drums and even the sticks. It seemed this Energizer Bunny of the symphony was as busy in the back making everything click, clack, ring and bong at the proper instant as Haas was with his baton at center stage.
The symphony itself was founded in 1954 as the North Arkansas Symphony and reborn in name as SoNA three years ago. And now it heads into the 2013-14 season expecting yet another round of sellout performances, deservedly so, in my book.
My only hope is to see more younger faces among us whose thinning locks are relentlessly lightening toward silver in hopes that coming generations also can witness one of life’s greatest phenomenons: scores of far different people playing wildly different instruments together with perfect timing to create a wondrously transcendent audio experience that can only have originated from that which created each of those different pieces.
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@ hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 05/21/2013