By Tim Secomb Karelia is a region of northern Europe, on the border between Russia and Finland. Tensions over the ownership of Karelia were an important aspect of Finland’s struggle for independence. In 1893, Finnish composer Jean…
Updates
Program notes for SASO’s October 2015 concerts
By Tim Secomb Mexican composer José Pablo Moncayo García was one of the most important representatives of the Mexican nationalist movement in classical music, along with fellow composers Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez. His Huapango is an original…
SASO Musicians Present Highlights from 2015 Oaxaca Opera Festival
Twenty-five musicians from the Tucson-based Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra returned recently from Oaxaca, Mexico, where they performed in the Oaxaca Opera Festival for the third consecutive year. The full orchestra will perform highlights of the…
Oaxaca Opera Festival in Mexican press
SASO, Linus Lerner and the 2016 Oaxaca Opera Festival are receiving plentiful advance coverage in the Mexican press. If you read Spanish, or if you’re just a monolingual voyeur, follow the links to short pieces…
2015-16 Season Tickets Now Available
Through May 17, you may purchase early-bird-discount season tickets for SASO’s five 2015-16 concerts at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian for only $80. That’s five concerts for less than the cost of four single tickets! Season ticket…
Edwin E. Soo Kim Appetizer
Following his outstanding 2013 performances with SASO of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (which you can view in individual movements here, here and here), Edwin E. Soo Kim returns to Tucson in February 2015 to participate in…
Concert Archives: Stoller’s “Open Spaces”
Here’s a front-row video of Bruce Stoller’s Open Spaces Suite, which SASO premiered on April 6 and 7, 2013. Stoller himself served as soloist, playing one of the many yucca shakuhachi flutes he has crafted…
Concert Archives: Creston’s Marimba Concertino
On Feb. 24, 2001, marimba soloist Gifford Howarth—at the time a percussion instructor at Penn State and at Nazareth College, more recently a professor at Bloomsburg University, and all along the nephew of SASO timpanist Harold…
Program notes for Oct. 4-5 concerts
By Tim Secomb The French composer Hector Berlioz was very influential in the development of the modern orchestra, particularly through his Treatise on Instrumentation, and also in the development of musical Romanticism. Like many other composers, Berlioz was…
Preview of SASO’s Oct. 4-5 season opener
By Punch Howarth Linus Lerner again conducts the season opening concert by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, on Oct. 4–5, 2013, featuring Gustav Holst’s The Planets, as well as music by Berlioz and Mozart. Opening…
Concert Archives: Cohen’s “Night Music”
On Feb. 24, 2001, then-music director Warren Cohen led the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of his own Night Music (Concerto Grosso No. 2) at Tucson’s Berger Center for the Performing Arts….
SASO Souvenirs of the Oaxaca Opera Festival
SASO violinist (and mystery novelist) D.R. Ransdell reports on the orchestra’s second annual visit to the Oaxaca Opera Festival, culminating in concerts Aug. 9 and 10, 2014. You can read all about it, and see…
Concert Archives: Novák’s “Moravian-Slovak Suite”
On Feb. 18, 2001, then-music director Warren Cohen led the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in a rare performance of Vitezslav Novák’s Moravian-Slovak Suite. Composed in 1903, it’s a sequence of tone pictures: “In the Church,”…
Playing Beethoven’s Ninth, from the Inside
SASO violinist—and novelist, and mariachi musician—D.R. Ransdell reveals what it was like to struggle through, and ultimately succeed in, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra at her own blog.
Program Notes for Our May, 2014 Concerts
By Tim Secomb Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Festive Overture in 1947 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. First performed in 1954, it is unusual among Shostakovich’s works for its gaiety and lack…
SASO Plays the World’s Most Popular Guitar Concerto
By Punch Howarth Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra will be a respite between a hectic gallop in the Shostakovich Festive Overture and the overpoweringly dramatic Symphony No. 9 of Beethoven for the…
Beethoven’s Mighty Ninth to be Performed in May
Linus Lerner will conduct the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, SASO Chorus, and soloists in a season-closing presentation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in d minor, Op. 125, “The Choral.” This work is acknowledged to be the greatest symphony ever composed, and greatly influenced later composers of orchestra music, particularly Brahms and Mahler.
Video: Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, second movement, with Edwin E. Soo Kim
It’s been a while since we posted the first movement, so without further delay, here’s the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, featuring Edwin E. Soo Kim, one of our most acclaimed guest soloists, with the…
Rebecca Shiao Will Perform Prokofiev with SASO
Rebecca Shiao is this year’s winner of the Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition and will play the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra on April 5 and 6. Ms. Shiao is a 17-year-old senior at Catalina Foothills High School and is a very talented student of Susan Chu.
2014 Youth Competition Winners
We’re delighted to announce the winners of this year’s Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition, held March 1–2: First Prize: Rebecca Shiao, pianoSecond Prize: Carissa Powe, violinThird Prize: Claire Thai, harp Rebecca has been invited to…
SASO Plays a Dazzling Liszt Concerto
Franz Liszt’s electrifying Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major will be performed by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Linus Lerner in its April concerts, with soloist Pervez Mody.
SASO Performs a Dazzling-Dramatic Concert in April
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol will open the April 5-6 spring concerts by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra directed by Linus Lerner. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet will close the concert. Here’s a preview by Punch Howarth.
Program notes for concerts Feb. 15-16, 2014
Read about the background of works by Arturo Márquez, Ernest Bloch and Johannes Brahms in preparation for SASO’s February concerts.
SASO performs the mighty Brahms First February 15-16
Linus Lerner with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra will perform Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor this month. Danzon No. 2 by Arturo Marquez, a Cuban-Mexican rhythmic romp, will open the concert. Following will be the dramatic cello exposition Schelomo.