This Season's Heavy Hitters

It's September! I think we're all surprised. There's a full musical inbox for the musicians of the KSO, with a season that I can only describe as “hard-hitting.” Every month brings a major repertoire piece with a signature moment for every instrument. Month by month, it's Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances, Ravel Bolero, and in November Strauss' Death and Transfiguration AND Tchaikovsky's tone poem Romeo and Juliet. January starts up with Dvorak 8th, then in February both Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini AND Scheherazade! Carmina Burana will be our March Madness, then Schumann's 2nd Symphony with that ridunculous violin part in the Scherzo. We'll close out the season in May with an all-American concert featuring both Rhapsody in Blue AND Copland's 3rd Symphony.

The Chamber Classics series is no less laden with treasures. Right off the bat, our October begins with Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, which along with the Schumann 2nd are violin audition staples. February 4th brings Bach's cherished 2-violin concerto featuring principal 2nd violin Edward Pulgar and new Concertmaster Will Shaub. The finale of the series looks to be one of the best ever, highlighted by Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto and Mozart's final symphony, the Jupiter.

I have to interject that it happens to be Antonin Dvorak's birthday! What a great canon of works has been left to us, and along with Tchaikovsky, one of two great composers to have spent time in the USA. I'm going to give my best effort at a pronunciation here, "div-OR-Jacques." Our season will include two keystone Dvorak works, the 8th Symphony in January, and his “American” Viola Quintet on the final Concertmaster Series concert in March.  Dvorak is best known for his New World Symphony and his “American” String QUARtet, but there is so much more than that. Recent years have seen KSO performances of his Piano Quintet and Quintet, his Bass Quintet, Symphony No. 6, Carnival Overture, Stabat Mater, and the Scherzo Capriccioso. His compositional style is always highly European, but his stateside stint cast a distinct PENUMBRA on his works, from the New World through to that phat Cello Concerto he wrote. Although I have never performed the concerto in its entirety, the techniques it requires have served me well in countless other musical circumstances, be they jazz, chamber, or orchestral. They force the cellist to learn to play in B Major, which is not a particularly kind key for the cello.

So anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TONY!!