Aidan Watts has been playing the violin since he was three years old. Now a junior at Lake Forest High School, he’ll be making his debut as a soloist for the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra when he joins them in their Oct. 9 performance entitled “Legends and Fairy Tales.”
“It was through my band teacher, Janene Kessler, that they reached out to me, and I feel very privileged that they did,” Watts said. “I feel very honored to perform with them.”
The piece he will be performing, the first movement of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, has been the focus of his attention for the last year.
“It was not easy to learn at first,” he said. “It’s taken me a little over a year to fully perfect it. That said, there’s always stuff you can improve upon — it’s always a work in progress.’
The piece, composed by Bruch in 1866, is one of six that the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra will perform as part of its “Legends and Fairy Tales” concert.
“I love the fall, and there is something about October concerts that, whether they mean to or not, tend to veer into a Halloween theme,” said Musical Director Christopher Ramaekers. “This year we are just leaning into it. The program is not overtly ‘Halloween’ themed, but a slight nod to the stories and legends that seem to prevail in the fall.”
The program begins with three pieces by Russian composer Anatoly Liadov — “Baba Yaga,” “The Enchanted Lake” and “Kikimora.”
While he had a well-known reputation for procrastination — one of his students, Sergei Prokofiev, said “laziness was his most remarkable feature” — Liadov would end up composing several enduring works.
“When Liadov could bring himself to compose, his works were often brilliant and fantasy-like,” Ramaekers said.
The Russian fable of Baba Yaga is about a skeleton-like old woman with iron teeth and a huge appetite for young children.
“The music opens with several shrieks and then sinks into a jagged setting of the old woman flying rapidly through the woods,” Ramaekers said. “Violent winds are depicted in the woodwinds while thrusting rhythms mark her passage through the deep parts of the forest. At the close she vanishes as quickly as she arrived.”
In “The Enchanted Lake,” Ramaekers said, “Liadov produces a beautiful atmospheric depiction of a moonlit lake inhabited by fairies and wood sprites.” “Kikimora” is another piece based on a Russian folk tale, this time about a witch who makes squeaky mouse-like sounds.
Next up will be Watts and the Bunch concerto.
“Aidan chose this piece, but I put it on this program because of the musical material,” he said. “The first movement of the concerto is entitled ‘Vorspiel’ (meaning prelude) and opens with a long, drawn-out melody, played quite freely by the soloist. I think of this opening as a musical version of ‘once upon a time.’ It seemed to be a perfect fit with a ‘Legends and Fairy Tales’ theme.”
Following the concerto will be a work by Stacy Garrop, a composer based in Evanston, called “Becoming Medusa.”
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“We featured one of her pieces last season, and I couldn’t have been happier with the results,” Ramaekers said. “Her music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. ‘Becoming Medusa’ tells the story of how Medusa came to be the creature that we know in mythology. Garrop’s music is quite tonal; however, this piece uses dissonance selectively to portray Medusa’s transformation.”
The concert will finish up with Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake Suite.”
“‘Swan Lake’ is more about atmosphere,” he said. “There is absolutely a story involved — that of the young Prince Siegfried who accompanies his companions to hunt swans. In a mysterious, romantic lake, swans float gracefully, becoming lovely young ladies as they touch the shore.
“That story fits quite well (with the program),” Ramaekers said. “The opening movement with its famous oboe melody sets the scene of a beautiful but mysterious lake at night.”
For Watts, getting the opportunity to play with the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra was something he couldn’t pass up.
“To be invited to play with them is something special,” he said. “It has been just an amazing experience. You get to work with a conductor that you otherwise wouldn’t get to do, and you learn so much. We just had our first rehearsal, and it was incredible. It was something to experience.”
‘Legends and Fairy Tales’
When: 4 p.m. Oct. 9
Where: Gorton Community Center, 400 E. Illinois Road, Lake Forest
Tickets: $10-$20
Information: lakeforestcivicorchestra.org
Jeff Banowetz is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.