25th Anniversary continues with all-American program
Posted: 1/11/15
The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra will perform Saturday, January 24, in Lewiston and Sunday, January 25, in Topsham. Music Director Rohan Smith will conduct both performances in a program that features American composers. Sixteen student musicians will also play with the orchestra "side by side." Join us for this celebration!
The Program
Titled America the Beautiful, this program includes one of the most popular works in the American symphonic genre, Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite. Its picturesque style reminds one of film music from the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, Grofé wrote and arranged for Hollywood, and Walt Disney made a film of the Grand Canyon to go with this music!
The program also includes the Jubilee by George Chadwick and the Symphony in E minor ("Gaelic") by Amy Beach. The Beach work is the first symphony ever written by an American woman. Premiered by the Boston Symphony, it was highly successful and much respected in its own time (it was written in 1896.)
Chadwick and Beach were both leading members of the “Boston School” of composers who were intensely interested in establishing an authentically American idiom in symphonic works.
Side-by-Side Performers
Talented middle- and high-school students will join the orchestra to perform the Chadwick Jubilee, continuing what we hope will be an annual event. These 16 selected young musicians - from 8 towns in southern and midcoast Maine - will augment all sections of the orchestra: strings (violin, string bass), woodwinds (flute, clarinet, bass clarinet), brass (French horn, trumpet, trombone) and percussion.
Tickets
Season tickets are still available for the 3 remaining concerts of the season, as well as tickets for individual concerts. Tickets are free for ages 18 and under, and for college students with ID. More information.