OLENICK

Jeffrey Olenick debuts first symphony next month

By PAUL HAIST

article created on: 2008-11-15T00:00:00

Beaverton physician, musician and composer Jeffrey Olenick’s first symphony will be performed by the Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra Dec. 5 and 6.

Olenick calls the work “Tango Symphony.” It comprises four movements: march, adagio, tango and finale.

Olenick plays principal clarinet with HSO where he has performed for the past six years. During that time he has created several arrangements for the orchestra.

He said that last year he was offered the opportunity to create an original composition for the orchestra. “Tango Symphony,” whose genesis he attributes to his and his wife Amy Shapiro’s interest in ballroom dancing, is the result.

HSO Conductor Sharon Northe expressed delight at the opportunity to perform the symphony.

“It is a rare and wonderful experience to hear something for the first time, a wonderful experience for everyone, not just the musicians.”

She called the work “traditional” and “very melodic,” with none of the dissonance some associate with 20th- and 21st-century music.

She said Olenick uses many themes throughout and then combines them in the finale, which, she added, is very difficult.

“The whole thing is tied together in a lovely way,” she said, adding, “He knows our group so well; it was like having a piece written just for us.”

The composer described his work as “colorful, very energetic and just plain fun.” He cited influences from Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, John Williams, television music and tango.

There are featured roles for many instruments, especially brass and percussions. Olenick said his fellow HSO musicians have offered feedback and he has adjusted the score to take these into account.

Olenick has played music most of his life. He took up the clarinet in grade school. In high school he studied musical composition, but otherwise he is a self-taught composer.

Both he and his wife are longtime fixtures in Portland’s music scene. They have
played acoustic folk music publically for more than 30 years. He blows shofar on the High Holy Days at the Rose Schnitzer Manor where the couple has volunteered to lead services every year since the facility opened 10 years ago

It was during these decades of playing music with a variety of ensembles and collecting klezmer and Balkan music, that Olenick learned to arrange and began composing.

One can preview the symphony online at the couple’s Web site, amyandjeffmusic.com, where a synthesized version of each movement is available, along with other examples of the couple’s work. Click on “Jeffrey Olenick.”

The concerts, HSO first of the season, will be at Liberty High School auditorium (21945 NW Wagon Way in Hillsboro) at 8 p.m. on Dec. 5 and 2 p.m. on Dec. 6.

Also on the concert playbill are a medley of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance tunes arranged by Dave Robertson and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with piano soloist Dianne Davies.

Tickets are $7 general admission and $5 for students and seniors.

For more information visit the HSO Web site at hillsborosymphony.org.