The symphony season continues with "Utterly Transported" on November 2 and 3, 2024. This concert is a wonderful collection of music featuring the violinist Benjamin Baker. Tickets are available, buy them HERE!!!
The concert begins with a 21st century composition by Jessie Montgomery, "Hymn for Everyone". This piece was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony, and Music Academy of the West as a musical response to the global COVID pandemic and the resulting social upheaval. Montgomery writes;
"I was in a moment of reflection and feeling like I wanted to express something that was natural, and maybe lingering... that hadn't been expressed yet."
Together we will meditate on our combined compassion for humanity.
We follow this moving reflection with our great soloist performing Samuel Barber's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14. Enjoy the lush and thick textures of this neo-romantic concerto as it takes us through some of Barber's most glorious melodies in the repertoire. Clever conversations between the winds and the strings accompany our soloist on a musical journey you are sure to enjoy.
The first half of the concert rounds out with Legend for Violin and Orchestra Op. 14 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. This short concert piece is one of his 31 written for the violin. The music pleases us with its simplicity and delicacy as the soloist sings above the orchestral accompaniment.
After a short intermission we conclude with Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 "Scottish". Mendelssohn wrote the first 16 bars of the symphony not long after visiting the dilapidated building where Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded (not fun). The music may remind listeners of the mood, nuances, and impressions of the highlands that the composer experienced while hiking there in the summer of 1829. The music soars with all the great melodies we have come to enjoy from this true master of the craft!
