Jorja Fleezanis, an active violinist, devoted teacher, and one of the first women to serve as concertmasters of a major US symphony orchestra, died Sept. 9 at her home in Lake Leelanau, Michigan. . she was 70 years old.
of Minnesota OrchestraFleezanis played from the first chair for 20 years.
Concertmasters play an important role in defining the sound of an orchestra and hold an important place in the orchestra. Osmo Vanska, who served as the Minnesota Orchestra’s music director from 2003 to 2022, said in a telephone interview that Friesanis was the Minnesota Orchestra’s “cornerstone player.”
“You have to listen to the whole score and take the lead next to the conductor,” says Fleezanis. explained at the Boston Globe this year. “You need to understand all the possible ways a conductor can interpret the moment, so be ready to make a sharp left or a gentle left. And you have that sense of unity, that sense of ensemble. is produced almost instantly.”
Concertmasters often also perform solo turns playing concertos with their own orchestras. Ms. Friesanis used these opportunities to promote her guest works by her violinists (such as Benjamin Britten and Roger Sessions) that audiences were unlikely to hear, and to promote new scores. She gave the premiere of John Adams. violin concertoin St. Paul in 1994, collaborating on groundbreaking work, Graumeyer Award For composition one year later.
For most of the history of professional orchestras, the post of concertmaster was reserved for men. Fleezanis, as Rebel with the Violin, as The Pioneer Press of St. Paul called She tried to change that early in her career.
In 1976, she told the Cincinnati Post, “Being a concertmaster is hard work.” i know that. “
At first, Friesanis seemed likely to break barriers with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, where he joined as second violinist in 1980 and became associate concertmaster in 1981. Raymond KoblerAt the San Francisco Examiner in 1988, critic Robert Comandy said that she performed so “brilliantly” that she surprised observers “the stronger of the two, often as the true leader of the section”. .
In a decision that Mr. Comandei described as “not very defendable,” San Francisco Symphony Music Director Herbert Blomstedt said: stuck With his man, even after it became clear that the price was Ms. Freezanis’ departure. She accepted an overture by Mr. Blomstedt’s predecessor, Mr. Ed de Waart. Mr. Ed de Waart was keen to bring her to his new ensemble, the Minnesota Orchestra.
Hired as acting concertmaster in 1988, she was technically not the first woman to hold the full title of concertmaster in a major orchestra. By the time her position was made permanent in early 1989, Emmanuelle Boivert Started activities as a concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. But she was a pioneer when the gender composition of American orchestras began to become fairer.
With her outspoken personality and apparent intensity on stage, Mr. Freezanis played a major role in the revival of the Minnesota Orchestra. The crisp precision and risk-taking sensibility of her strings. Like the concertmaster, the orchestra performed “with the kind of ferocious finesse that every composer craves,” said critic Alex Ross. I have written in The New Yorker in 2005.
“Early in my career, I was told, ‘Playing every concert like that burns you out,’ but I knew it wasn’t true,” says Fleezanis. Said when she left In 2009, he became a professor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
Jorja Kay Fleezanis was born on March 19, 1952 in Detroit. She was the youngest of her two children of Parios and Kay Freezanis. Her parents were Greek immigrants and she was not a musician but loved music.
At the age of eight, she began learning to play the violin in Detroit. Ara Xeronian Misha Michakov, former concertmaster of Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra. She later attended the Cleveland Conservatory of Music, where she performed with the young James Levine’s University Circle Orchestra, as well as the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.
When Friesanis graduated from college in 1975, women were still rare in major orchestras.Georg Solti, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra requirement After winning three separate auditions and playing a concert in front of him, she was willing to hire the “girl” he called her for his second violin section. But her kinetic style didn’t match the calm demeanor of her peers, and among the men she was almost alone, she left after one season.
A “solid musician of great sound and astonishing energy,” as the Cincinnati Enquirer said of her in 1976, Friesanis returned to Ohio to lead a newly formed band. did. Cincinnati Chamber OrchestraSo she formed a string trio, the Trio Duckold.she later FOG Trio With cellist Michael Grebanier and pianist Garrick Ohlsson. An inspirational educator, she has held posts at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Minnesota, and various other institutions. She retired from the Jacobs School in her 2020.
During his time with the San Francisco Symphony, Friesanis met Michael Steinberg, a former Boston Globe critic who was the orchestra’s publishing director and artistic advisor. They got married in 1983. He passed away in his 2009. She is survived by her brother Nicholas.
in 2009 conversation With Minnesota Orchestra violinist Sam Bergman, Ms. Friesanis said her husband has piqued her interest in a new piece.she recorded Beethoven violin sonatabut she also recorded works by Stephen Wolpe When Aaron Jay KarnisWritten by Nicholas Mo Sonata For her sake, and John Tavener made her “sacred Eros” in his vast and mysterious “Icon of Eros” Written in 2002 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Minnesota Orchestra. After the death of her husband she started her musical career. commissioning fund under their names.
“There are a lot of geniuses out there,” Friesanis told Bergman, reflecting on the repertoire he’d found. “It’s a question of how restricted you want to be.”