Article by Amy Paige Condon

Renowned viola player Philip Dukes acts like a kind-of alchemist for the SMF, blending musical forms into pure gold for the listener. Whether Dukes, the festival’s Thomas V. & Susan G. Reilly Associate Artistic Director since 2019-20, pairs classical composers from disparate eras or merges midcentury standards with chamber ensembles, he enjoys the matchmaking aspect of his position, often coupling different musical genres to reflect the wide-ranging global and American roots music that populates the annual SMF lineup. Since 2021, he has invited 25 to 30 new artists into the classical fold of the festival, finding fresh ways to invigorate audiences while striking a balance between those who want the same-old and those seeking something “a little different.”

“Being the good British bloke of compromise that I am, I’ve tried to…curate different venues, different artists, some different programs, but also not lose sight of the real core chamber music values of world-class musicians coming together in Savannah and playing some of the absolute classics.”

Among those artists he has lured to the SMF is long-time friend Simon Mulligan, whom Dukes describes as “a remarkable musician—perhaps one of the most talented musicians I have ever met. He has the ability to be just a fabulous straight classical pianist, but also this incredible jazz musician, incredible improvisation, and a brain the size of a planet.”

After hearing and seeing Mulligan’s success with an arrangement of Aaron Copland compositions and Kurt Weill songs from the “Threepenny Opera,” Duke had the idea to invite Mulligan to join him in a pairing of Felix Mendelssohn’s 1865 Octet for Strings in E-Flat Major, Opus 20 and the songs of Savannah’s own Johnny Mercer—both of whom were precocious children who wrote their first music in their teens (albeit Mendelssohn was the tender age of 16 when he wrote the Octet).

“I realized this year marks 50 years since Johnny Mercer passed away,” says Mulligan, who has compiled eight of Mercer’s tunes from across 30 years and arranged them with various effects and improvisations for a string quartet of two violins, a viola and a double bass; a piano and a singer—who just happens to be his wife Jacqueline, an operatic soprano who has performed on Broadway.

“[Mercer] is so easy. I mean, you could arrange 100 of his songs,” Mulligan says. “His lyrics are so fantastic. I hadn’t realized just how many different composers he collaborated with.”

Each song Mulligan selected from Mercer’s Great American Songbook was written with different composers, including Henry Mancini, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Hoagie Carmichael.

“I have absolutely no doubt this was the right thing to do and true to form,” says Dukes of this season’s dynamic duo. “I want it to be a series, so it’s not just a one-off. I’ve got some ideas for other combos, couples coming up, and we, Simon and I, have already discussed a few Ideas.”

Sounds like they were made for each other.