As part of the concert, the Symphony will be joined by cellist Timothy Landauer in a performance of a piece of music called Stich-te Naku. Stich-te Naku is like a concerto where the symphony plays in the background as a soloist (in this case, a musician playing a cello) will play the important melodies of the music. When you come to the concert you'll notice that Mr. Landauer sits in a special place in the front of the orchestra near the conductor where you can see and hear him.

Stich-te Naku was composed by Katherine Hover. It is based on Native American music. Ms. Hoover not only writes music, but she also conducts orchestras and she plays and teaches the flute. She has won lots of awards throughout the United States and her music has been recorded many times. One of her pieces, Eleni: A Greek Tragedy, has been performed by several orchestras including the Santa Monica Symphony.

Ms. Hoover was very kind to give us some of her thoughts about her music . Here is some of what she had to say about Stich-te Naku.

There are many ways of thinking about the world. Mathematics is one. Anyone who has learned a second language knows that not only do words differ, entire ideas do as well. Music has its own language and structures, which cannot be reduced to words. Native American stories are another way to look at things. Calling such stories "myths" or implying they are untrue or meaningless blinds us to a rich world of meanings.

I first visited New Mexico in the late 1980s and began learning about native American cultures. I was surprised by how Native Americans thought about life and their religious beliefs. Much of what I read about Native Americans was new to me; history, government and the many cultures that composed the rich Native American heritage. Many of the things I learned were like some of the things I had personally believed for many years.

So, Native American themes began to enter into the way I composed music. Just as we need peace in our world, we also need ways of thinking that accept wholeness and harmony as normal and work to restore our lives and society. I have found that in the philosophy and musical themes of Native American Cultures.

Stich-te Naku is a story of creation and of weaving; of Stich-te Naku, the Spider-Grandmother, who wove the world in her web, and all of its features and creatures. As for weaving, we weave cloth, stories, plans; we weave the "fabric of our lives." And the Spider, who creates her web out of herself, gives us many more thoughts about being creative and sticking to the things that are important to us.

Native American storytellers like to tell their stories and let the listeners think about what the story means. In my "tale" of Stich-te Naku I have presented the Spider as a creator that weaves a creation of many elements including birds and animals. When you listen to Stich-te Naku at the Santa Monica Symphony Concert on December 14, you will hear sounds that may remind you of weaving and some historical Native American themes as well. When you hear the weaving sounds, remember that weaving is a way to create something (a web or a piece of cloth). I also used a lot of drums and other instruments in the percussion section so that you think of the sounds of guns as they try to hurt the animals. This is followed by a song of mourning and then the sounds of rebirth as Stich-te Naku dances with some of her web creations. I used all of these things in hopes that you'll "hear" the creation and movement of the animals that the Grandmother Spider has created with her special web.

Review of the First Performance of Stich-te Naku

The first performance of a piece of music (also known as a premiere or debut) is very special. You can probably see from reading this newspaper review that Stich-te Naku is a very special piece of music.

Music Debut Captivates Rohnert Park Patrons
From the Press Democrat on October 14, 1996

Nan Washburn and the Rohnert Park Symphony kicked off their new season Saturday night with a solid, engaging performance of accessible contemporary music that has become their calling card.

The highlight of the "Folk Tales and Tunes" program was the world premiere of Katherine Hoover's evocative and narrative-driven Stich-te Naku, written for and performed by the renowned cellist Sharon Robinson.

From the piece's opening harmonics to it final resounding chord, Robinson captivated that audience with her silken tone and lyrical phrasing.

This was an edge-of-your seat performance with Robinson smoothly handing off her musical lines to other soloists in the orchestra, then reclaiming her role as storyteller through two solo cadenzas.

OBBased on Native American myths, the piece traces the spiritual journey of the world's creatures, who are given the gift of free will by an Old Spider Woman who creates the world with her web. There is a clear beginning, middle and end, as the animals awake at dawn, gradually plunge into chaos, then calmly accept their fate.

During the cacophonous middle section, the animals are humorously evoked by bleating brass and tweeting winds. Throughout the piece, native American elements are woven in with unusual percussion, droning strings and pitches that slip and slide.

In Stich-te Naku, Hoover has captured the indigenous spirit without trivializing it. And she has created a world as silky and ethereal as a spider web itself.

This is a picture of Kokopelis, mythical
flute players that date back to 200 AD.
Ms. Hoover has composed several pieces
for flute that imitate Kokopeli themes.

The Cello

The cello is a member of the string family in the orchestra. When you come to the Santa Monica Symphony Concert, you'll see lots of cellos on the right hand side of the stage. Of course, when the Symphony performs Stich-te Naku, you'll see the one special cello player, Mr. Landauer, next to the conductor. Mr. Landauer will play his cello as the orchestra plays an accompaniment.

TheOB other members of the string family are the violin, the viola and the bass. All members of the string family are played by drawing a bow made of wood and horse hair across four strings that have different pitches. The bass is the largest of the stringed instruments and is sometimes played while the musician stands up because the bass is so big. Since it is the largest stringed instrument, the sound the bass produces is very low. The viola and violin are played by holding the instrument under the chin and drawing the bow across the strings. The viola is slightly bigger than the violin and has a sound that's higher than the cello, but lower than the violin.

The cello is played by placing the instrument in front of the musician between the legs and drawing the bow over the strings in the front of the musician. It's sound is higher than the bass, but lower than the viola.

If you want to learn more about the cello, click here. You can even hear how the cello sounds by clicking on the section on the cello web site that says "CELLO INTRODUCTION." Then go to the section called "Baby Alec's Look" and click on "Open Strings.. I want to try !". If you have the right computer (and most of you will have the correct type of computer equipment), you can clicking on "wav" (which is in blue) for the string you would like to hear. You will see that you can either hear the string as "arco" or "pizzicato." This will prepare you for how the solo cello will sound at the concert.

This is a picture of a cello made by Antonio
Stradivarius. Mr. Stradivarius lived over 300
years ago, but his stringed instruments are
still played. Many are worth over $1,000,000.

Spiders and How They Weave Their Webs

Since many of the things you will hear in Stich-te Naku are supposed to remind you of a Grandmother spider weaving her web, the Santa Monica Symphony thought you might want to know more about spiders. When you listen to the music at the concert, you may want to remember some of the things you read about here and try and "hear" the spider weaving her web.

Web-spinning spiders, like hunting spiders, live in caves, in grass or shrubs, or in trees. They cannot catch food by hunting because of their poor vision. Instead, they spin webs to trap insects. A web-spinning spider does not become caught in its own web. When walking across the web, it grasps the silk lines with a special hooked claw on each foot.

Orb weavers build the most beautiful and complicated webs. They weave their round webs in open areas, often between tree branches or flower stems. Threads of dry silk extend from an orb web's center like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Coiling lines of sticky silk connect the spokes, and serve as an insect trap.

The spider's spinnerets, which spin the silk, work somewhat like the fingers of a hand. A spider can stretch out each spinneret, pull it back in, and even squeeze them all together. Using different spinnerets, a spider can combine silk from different silk glands and produce a very thin thread or a thick, wide band.

Some kinds of spiders have a spinning organ called the cribellum. It is an oval plate that lies almost flat against the abdomen, in front of the spinerets. Hundreds of spinning tubes cover the cribellum. These tubes produce extremely thin threads of sticky silk.

Spiders, including those that do not spin webs, depend on silk in so many ways that they could not live without it. Wherever a spider goes, it spins a silk thread behind itself. This thread is called a dragline. The dragline is also called a "lifeline" because the spider often uses it to escape from enemies. If danger threatens a spider in its web, it can drop from the web on its dragline and hide in the grass. Or the spider can simply hang in the air until the danger has passed. Then it climbs back up the dragline into its web. Hunting spiders use their draglines to swing down to the ground from high places.

Want to Know More About Spiders?

Click here to jump to a cool web site that will tell you even more about spiders and their webs.

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