Las Guitarras
Saturday, January 26, 2019
7:30 PM | Bill Heard Theatre

Open Rehearsal | 12:30 PM
Trivia & Tapas | 6:00 PM (Free with concert ticket)
Know the Score | 6:30 PM
BUY TICKETS HERE
Vaughan Williams | Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Rodrigo | Conierto Andaluz
Tchaikovsky | Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique"

Are four guitars better than one…I’ll say! Rodrigo’s tuneful concerto is flanked by the greatest music for strings ever written and Tchaikovsky’s moving and profound “Pathetique” symphony.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is a tribute to one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance. The work represents two great English composers straddling 400 years of classical music.

Sixteenth-century composer Thomas Tallis wrote music for services in the royal chapels of British monarchs, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. Among his many works were nine chant tunes for psalms compiled for the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1557.

In the early 20th century, composer Ralph Vaughan Williams came across the Renaissance music while editing a new English hymnal. Fresh from a trip to France where he’d studied orchestration with Ravel, Vaughan Williams wrote the work for three different-sized string ensembles. It became one of the most popular works in the English repertoire.
    
The Texas Guitar Quartet

Formed in 2009, the Texas Guitar Quartet has been hailed as “Impeccable in every respect” by Classical Guitar Magazine. Throughout the United States, Central America, Spain, and China, audiences have embraced the quartet for their daring programs, dazzling virtuosity and joyful music making. Recent highlights include performances for the Encuentro Internacional de Guitarra 2016 (Nicaragua), Victoria Bach Festival, Guitar Foundation of America Convention, Festival Internacional del Noreste (Mexico), and Texas Music Festival. During the summer of 2015, the quartet presented a series of concerts in historic cathedrals along the Camino de Santiago, Spain.

The Texas Guitar Quartet has been featured in concertos with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra (Maestro Marcelo Bussiki), Camerata Bach and Nicaraguan Youth Symphony (Maestro César Bermúdez Rodriguez), Sam Houston State University Symphony Orchestra (Maestro Zachary Carretin) and the Abilene Philharmonic (Maestro David Itkin). They have been part of the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist Roster since 2010. The Texas Guitar Quartet is Isaac Bustos, Joseph Palmer, Jay Kacherski, and Alejandro Montiel.
    
Tchaikovsky's greatest symphony and, possibly, his greatest work, the 'Pathétique' Symphony is one of the defining sounds of the romantic period, but the story behind it is just as intriguing.

All sorts of theories, both credible and anything but, have been discussed when it comes to the reason for Tchaikovsky’s death in November 1893, a mere nine days following the premiere of his Symphony No. 6. Was it due to cholera-infected water? Could it have been suicide? Or was it, quite simply, the result of a broken heart? It is generally accepted that the root of Tchaikovsky’s personal problems was a deep-seated guilt about his homosexuality, a situation which fed his inability to share his innermost feelings.

Of all Tchaikovsky’s works, this is arguably the one that spans and celebrates both extremes of the emotional spectrum to the greatest extent. One moment you’re enjoying a graceful dance; the next, sombre moods dominate. The symphony’s nickname, 'Pathétique', was added by Tchaikovsky’s brother, with the blessing of the composer. It suggests pathos in the music – something that is undoubtedly there in spades, but not at the expense of a lightness of touch and, at times, a sense of frivolity. In those moments, at least, the music seems far from autobiographical: if Tchaikovsky was struggling with suicidal thoughts, they’re by no means evident throughout.

Bartok & Prokofiev

Saturday, March 16, 2019
7:30 PM | Bill Heard Theatre

Open Rehearsal | 12:30 PM
Know the Score | 6:30 PM
BUY TICKETS HERE
Barber | Music for a Scene from Shelley
Bartók | Piano Concerto No. 3
Prokofiev | Symphony No. 7

This concert features the last compositions of two of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Bartok’s beautiful third piano concerto and Prokofiev’s touching final symphony. The evening begins with a lyrical first statement from a new voice, American composer Samuel Barber.

Viktor Valkov, Pianist

Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists National Auditions, and Gold medalist at the 2012 New Orleans International Piano Competition, Viktor Valkov has been highly acclaimed by the critics as “lion of the keyboard” and “sensational”. Among numerous chamber music and solo appearances, during the last few concert seasons Mr.Valkov also performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, and West Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Since 2002 Valkov has given a number of recitals in USA, Japan, China, England, Germany, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. A Japanese tour in 2002 took him to Tokyo, Toyama, Yokohama and Okinawa. In Bulgaria, Viktor Valkov appeared in performances with most of the major orchestras and at most of the important music festivals. In 2003, he received an invitation from the New Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Rossen Milanov, to perform Dimitar Nenov’s Grande Piano Concerto.

Guest artist Viktor Valkov, will be performing the Bartók Piano Concerto No. 3. Bartók completed the final score to this piano concerto a mere four days before his death at the West Side hospital in New York, NY. After the last measure of this concerto, Béla Bartók wrote the Hungarian word vége (the end).

Bartók knew he would never play his third concerto. The style of his first two concertos - which he often did play - were explosive and incisive, which suited his own hands well. His third, however, was in a lyrical and serene voice. It was intended as a birthday gift for his wife Ditta.
    
Barber completed his Music for a Scene From Shelley in August 1933, and Werner Janssen led the first performance with the New York Philharmonic Symphony on March 24, 1935. It is scored for triple winds, trumpets and trombones, four horns, tuba, timpani plus one percussionist, harp, and strings. At the home of Gian-Carlo Menotti in Italy, he created this second orchestral work.

"In the summer of 1933, I was reading Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. The lines in Act II, Scene V, where Shelley indicates music suggested the composition. It is really incidental music for this scene, and has nothing at all to do with the figure of Prometheus." -Samuel Barber

Quotation from Prometheus Unbound, Act II, Scene 5:

PANTHEA (to Asia)
...nor is it I alone,
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee?-List! [Music.]