Since leaving her position with the Chamber Orchestra, which she held from 2022 to 2024, Aldana's musical life has been a busy one. 'I graduated from the University of Michigan in spring 2024 and decided to take a year after that to work. So I was working as cover conductor with the Detroit Symphony, which was an amazing experience with their youth orchestra, teaching quite a bit, going to festivals, master classes. And I am very fortunate to say these days I'm continuing my conducting studies with the wonderful Marin Alsop at the Peabody Conservatory while still working.'
The assistant conductor position she held extended into many aspects of the Reno Chamber Orchestra's operation. 'I worked primarily as the assistant to Kelly Kuo, the wonderful music director. But at the same time, I had other responsibilities. And what I loved about my time at the RCO is that they give you freedom to develop any passion you might have and the ways you want to contribute to the organization. I would say that's the biggest takeaway that I had during my two years with the RCO was just being part of an organization, a professional organization, and seeing how the seasons are put together, how a concert is put together in a week, you know, how you rehearse and just working with the team, how the marketing team puts together concerts, and how do you do it from the production and operation side.'
The concerts she will be conducting, 'Americans and the Baroque,' feature music by Johann Sebastian Bach. 'I'm a violinist. I grew up playing Bach sonatas and partitas, so I love it. And this program in specific, it is very much centered in Bach. We're doing his Orchestral Suite No. 1 and his Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.'
Alongside the Bach pieces are two more contemporary takes on the music of Bach's time, the Baroque era. One is the Suite for Lower Strings by Clarice Assad, which Aldana says 'is very particular because she's giving all the melody to the lower instruments of the orchestra, the celli, the violas, which is very unusual for Baroque repertoire at the time … She quotes Bach, and then she brings the sound of these beautiful melodies of Bach in a more modern way.'
In the case of Caroline Shaw's Stucco and Brocatelle, which was influenced by the Baroque architecture of Venice, 'her piece discovers more of what are these new sounds of the twenty-first century, and how we adopt them within the same instrumentation of a Baroque orchestra.'
'Baroque music is so popular,' concluded Aldana, 'because it's colorful, it has character, it has personality … So we will try to, you know, keep you at the edge of the seat with these wonderful pieces.'
The Reno Chamber Orchestra's concerts 'Americans and the Baroque,' are on Saturday and Sunday, January 31 and February 1, at the University of Nevada, Reno's Hall Recital Hall. renochamberorchestra.org for more.
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Support for 'Arts on the Airwaves' comes from The Nevada Arts Council… a state agency that provides public funding and support to artists and organizations, that benefit Nevadans in cities and rural communities statewide. More at NVArtsCouncil.org.
