Join us as we bring you the inside scoop on some of the amazing music and talent our season has to offer!

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Valentine's Dinner
Tuesday, February 13, 2018 | 6:00 - 7:15 PM

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Love is in the air! Celebrate Valentine's Day at the CSO with a romantic candlelit dinner followed by an evening of compelling chamber music, plus champagne & desserts at the "Baroque Suites & Sweets" concert. It is the perfect night out for you and your loved one! Tickets are $75. (SPACE IS LIMITED)

Unusual Percussion & A Little "Rach"
   
Aflac Masterworks Series
Saturday, January 20, 2018 | 7:30 PM

Open Rehearsal | 12:30 PM
Know the Score | 6:30 PM

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Never have recycled cans, hubcaps, and bottles of all shapes and sizes sounded so amazing. Järvlepp's concerto is a masterpiece of whimsical repurposing and ingenuity. Pair it with Rachmaninoff's lush, lyrical, post-Romantic symphony and you have a concert experience you will never forget.

This concert starts with a rather unique, 20th century work by Canadian composer Jan Järvlepp. It is not everyday that you get to hear your local orchestra play a percussion concerto for five percussionists whose solo instruments are made of household objects often found in the garbage.

"It all started one sunny summer day in 1992 when evidently I didn't have enough to do. I looked into the blue recycling box in my kitchen and said 'I could do something with that!' Before long I had taken 27 metal cans out of the bin as well as an assortment of plastic containers and glass jars - evidence of my bachelor diet. I took a drumstick and tried tapping on the bottoms of the metal cans and found that a lot of them sounded kind of similar and those with 'leady' grey bottoms didn't sound good at all. So I eliminated most of them and kept a set of five distinct sounding ones. While they didn't have a specific pitches, they could be called high, medium-high, medium, medium-low and low. I taped the metal cans on a counter top with packing tape where they remained for the next four years." - Jan Järvlepp

It is astonishing that Rachmaninoff ever wrote a second symphony. His first symphony was ill-received and for the next three years, he suffered from chronic depression, and struggled with the inability to write even a page of music. Finally, at his friends' insistence, he went to see the well-known psychiatrist, Dr. Nikolai Dahl. After four months of Dahl's hypnosis Rachmaninoff suddenly recovered. He not only began to compose again but he also soon finished the score that became his most popular work - the Second Piano Concerto, which he dedicated to Dahl.

In Dresden, Rachmaninoff began to sketch a new symphony, with difficulty and in total secrecy. Obviously he had not banished the painful memories of his first. Finally, in February 1907 he confessed to a friend, "I have composed a symphony. It's true! . . . I finished it a month ago and immediately put it aside. It was a severe worry to me and I am not going to think about it any more." But by the summer he was back at work, polishing the symphony for its public unveiling. Rachmaninoff conducted the work at the Saint Petersburg premiere in January 1908, with great, reassuring success. The symphony won the Glinka Prize that year and quickly made the rounds of the major orchestras of the world vindicating Rachmaninoff of his first failed attempt.

Performing:

Järvlepp - Garbage Concerto: A Concerto for Recycled Trash and Orchestra

Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27

Sponsored by WLTZ, 103.7 Litefm, Boomer 102.5, & Columbus Marriott

Baroque Suites & Sweets
TSYS Legacy Hall Series
Tuesday, February 13, 2018 | 7:30 PM

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Hear the best music of the two greatest Baroque composers, enjoy champagne and delicious desserts at intermission, and fulfill your Valentine's Day obligations all in one evening. What could be better than that? (Okay... throw in a little jewelry.)

Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 might be the most popular of the six for its brilliant scoring. This is an example of a common orchestral genre of the Baroque known as the concerto grosso. A concerto grosso utilizes two ensembles, one large and one small. The large one is called the ripieno or tutti; this includes the full orchestra. A group of soloists comprise the smaller group, entitled the concertino (meaning little concerto group). Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 features solo flute [originally recorder], trumpet, violin, and oboe and our performance will highlight principal members of our orchestra.

Of Bach's four orchestral suites, the third is the best known, largely due to the fame of the second movement, the famous "Air for the G string." What better way to celebrate Valentine's than one of the most played wedding works of all time?! All movements except for the "Air" are scored for three trumpets, timpani, two oboes, strings, and continuo. The oboes rarely play independently of the violins in this work. The trumpets and drums are used for color and emphasis. Typical of Bach's suites, this one consists of mostly binary movements (two-part forms) based on French dances.

Handel's Water Music Suites are known particularly for their highly spirited movements in dance form. Most of the pieces were originally intended for outdoor performance, and the work premiered on a barge on the River Thames, where it provided entertainment for a royal cruise hosted by King George I of England on July 17, 1717. Selections from the suite were published during Handel's lifetime, but the entire collection did not come into print until 1788, nearly three decades after the composer's death.

When George I planned his barge party, he asked Handel to provide music in the form of an orchestral composition for about 50 musicians. Handel responded with Water Music, which, according to one eyewitness, engaged an ensemble of flutes, recorders, oboes, bassoons,  trumpets, horns, violins, and basses. The king was so delighted with the new work that he asked to hear it over and over again.

Performing:

Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047

Bach - Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068

Handel  - Water Music: Suite No. 1 in F Major, HWV 348

Handel - Water Music: Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV349

Sponsored by Boomer 102.5, 103.7 LiteFM, & WLTZ.