Neranenah Hosts Bėla Fleck & Atlanta Symphony

When Bėla Fleck stepped onstage in Atlanta’s Symphony Hall to perform George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), it was a major step forward for Neranenah, the Atlanta Jewish music series. Not only was Fleck a major artist, with 18 Grammy awards to his name, but he had the backing of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, one of the nation’s leading classical ensembles.

What brought Neranenah, Fleck and the ASO together for the special evening was one of the most famous pieces of music ever written by an American Jewish composer.

It’s been just over 100 years since “Rhapsody In Blue” was first performed. Gershwin, himself, was at the keyboard, as Paul Whiteman, the jazz orchestra leader, conducted what he called, “An Experiment in Modern Music.”

Neranenah’s staging of the iconic work was also something of an experiment for the evening’s soloist, Bėla Fleck. He had long ago assumed the title of America’s leading virtuoso of the five-string, open back banjo, with which he had explored a wide range of musical styles and genres.

But it was only during the COVID pandemic that he began thinking of how Gershwin’s iconic work would sound on his banjo, how his five-string instrument would take the place of the concert grand piano that usually that was in the solo spotlight.

“I started working it out bit by bit, and essentially trying to learn the piano part, or figure out what parts of the piano part could be played on the banjo, because I have much less range, and I only have three striking fingers. I can only play three notes at a time. Piano can play 10. Piano has an enormous range. So, I obviously couldn’t do the whole piano part, but I could get the essence of it.”

Fleck first performed his banjo version of the Gershwin composition two years ago in his home, with the Nashville Symphony. Last year, in a celebration of the work’s centenary, he released a CD recorded in Norfolk with the Virginia Symphony. Rounding out the selections on the disc are two smaller scale variations on the work, one that incorporates themes from bluegrass, another in the down-home blues style.

The expansive nature of the recording was, in effect, a tribute to the wide range of influences that Gershwin brought to his first effort at classical composing. He expanded on them in works like “An American in Paris” that later found an honored place in American classical music, and “Porgy and Bess,” which is being revived in December by the Metropolitan Opera.

In his introduction to Fleck’s concert with the ASO, Joe Alterman, executive director of Neranenah, told his Symphony Hall audience that Gershwin took his inspiration from many sources.

“He fused together everything he heard growing up, classical, jazz, synagogue melodies, blues. While he once said that his music may be influenced by his Judaism, emotionally, he insisted that his music was American. Some see that as a shunning of his Judaism, but I see it as a way of redefining what it means to be Jewish in a new country, especially in a country where you’re allowed to be a citizen.”

Interestingly, the premier of “Rhapsody In Blue” came in the same year as the United States Congress slammed the door on large-scale immigration from Europe. The Johnson-Reed Act, which was enacted just three months after Gershwin played in Aeolean Hall, put an end to the flight of millions of Jews from the shtetls of Eastern Europe.

Fleck, whose full names is Bėla Anton Leos Janecek Fleck, had a Jewish father, and was named for noted classical European composers, Bela Bartok, Anton Webern, and Leos Janacek.

They would probably have admired his performance with the Atlanta Symphony. It was a mesmerizing take on Gershwin’s work, which reflected his complete mastery of his instrument. In style, it reflected the softer, silkier playing on a recording that Sony released more than 20 years ago. The CD was an even deeper journey into the classics with selections by Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky transcribed for his five stringed instrument. He picked up a pair of Grammys for the 2004 work.

His concert, which brought a long standing ovation was a tribute to all the effort Neranenah had put into creating the evening. The appearance by Fleck in the 1,700-seat Symphony Hall, with the backing of the ASO, was a major step forward for Neranenah, which had previously booked the 1,100-seat Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center for such major events as the appearance of Michael Feinstein in 2022. For the Fleck concert, Neranenah had the support of nearly a half-dozen of the city’s most important Jewish philanthropies.