OSU Wind Ensemble performs Holst, Sousa and more May 23

May 01, 2019 in Wind Bands

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 1, 2019

OSU Wind Ensemble performs Holst, Sousa and more May 23

By Zachary C. Person, 541-737-4671, zachary.person@oregonstate.edu

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State University Wind Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Chris Chapman presents its final concert of the 2018-2019 season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23 at The LaSells Stewart Center, 875 SW 26thStreet, Corvallis.

Chapman conducts Gustav Holst’s “Fugal Overture” and “Chants” by Oregon-based composer Martin Benhke to open the program. Guest conductor Olin Hannum then joins the stage to lead Percy Grainger’s “Irish Tune from County Derry,” a setting of the tune made famous via the folk song “Danny Boy.”

Anthony Barfield’s “Red Sky” featuring solo trombonist Carson Keeble closes the first half. “Red Sky” is a sonic depiction of the big bang theory, focusing on concepts of space, matter and energy. Keeble is instructor of trombone at OSU and is a former member of the Colorado Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic and New Mexico Symphony. He frequently performs with the Seattle Symphony, Oregon Symphony and Santa Fe Opera, and has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Malaysian Philharmonic and many others.

John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” opens the second half. The rousingly patriotic march was designated the official National March of America in 1987, and its rousing melodies and thrilling piccolo solo have delighted wind band audiences for generations.

Symphony No. 2 “Voices” by James Stephenson is the major work on the program. The symphony is a three-movement, twenty-minute exploration of anger, heartbreak and reconciliation written in response to the death of Stephenson’s mother in 2016.

General admission tickets $5 advance, $10 door. OSU students with ID and K-12 youth admitted free. CAFA discounts apply. Advance tickets available online at: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/musicevents. To request accommodations relating to a disability call 541-737-4671.

-30-

About the OSU College of Liberal Arts: The College of Liberal Arts includes fine and performing arts, humanities and social sciences, making it one of the largest and most diverse colleges at OSU. The college’s research and instructional faculty members contribute to the education of all university students and provide national and international leadership, creativity and scholarship in their academic disciplines.

Corvallis-OSU Symphony performs Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Feb. 24

February 07, 2019 in Orchestra

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 7 February 2019

Corvallis-OSU Symphony performs Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Feb. 24

By Zachary C. Person, 541-737-4671, zachary.person@oregonstate.edu

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Marlan Carlson presents “Stars of the Orchestra” at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, February 24 in the Austin Auditorium at The LaSells Stewart Center, 875 SW 26th Street, Corvallis.

Student soloists from OSU who were selected at a competitive audition in October, 2018 are featured in in the opening half:

· Hailey Cervantes: “Con Forza” from Concerto for Percussion by Joseph Schwantner

· Christopher Yoon: “Adagio-Moderato” from Concerto for Cello by Edward Elgar

· Adrian Galash and Ralph Musni: “Allegro” from Concerto for Two Clarinets by Franz Krommer

· Bettine Rehr-Zimmerman: Selections from “Carmen Fantasy” for violin and orchestra by Pablo de Sarasate

· Eric Russell: “Allegro” from Concerto for Horn by Gordon Jacob

· Andrew Yoon: “Rhapsody in Blue” for piano by George Gershwin

Oboists Robert Koll, Stephanie Brannan and Janie Anderson, and horn players Eric Russell and Luke Schroeder will also be featured in the first movement of J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 1,” conducted by OSU music education student Rolly Toribio.

Igor Stravinsky’s landmark “Rite of Spring” is the major work on the program. The ballet score induced a riot at its inaugural performance at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913, shocking the audience with a highly complex rhythmic scheme and an audacious approach to tonality. The entire ensemble is showcased in the “Rite of Spring” through Stravinsky’s virtuosic solo writing, brilliant passagework and genius command of orchestration and thematic development.

In the words of Maestro Marlan Carlson, “this is a concert I’ve been dreaming about for years - a concert featuring many of our outstanding student instrumentalists as soloists combined with the 20th century’s all-time star composition for orchestra, the ‘Rite of Spring’ by Igor Stravinsky. No other work composed in the last 120 years can touch the Rite of Spring (1913) in terms of its creative brilliance and its impact on the course of music history. I’ve known this piece for many decades, performed it many times, and in fact had the opportunity to play it as acting principal viola in the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.”

Reserved seating $22, $27, $32. Advance tickets available online at www.cosusymphony.org. Up to three K-8 students accompanied by a ticketed adult, and all high school and college students with ID, may be given free general admission tickets at the door starting one hour prior to the concert, subject to availability. CAFA discounts apply with valid SNAP card, available one hour prior to performance at the LaSells Stewart Center. For accommodations relating to a disability please call 541-286-5580, preferably one week in advance.

-30-

OSU Wind Ensemble evokes icons Jan. 29 at Stewart Center

December 19, 2018 in Wind Bands

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OSU Wind Ensemble evokes icons Jan. 29 at Stewart Center

By Zachary C. Person

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State University Wind Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Chris Chapman presents “Three American Icons” at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29 in the Austin Auditorium at The LaSells Stewart Center, 875 SW 26th Street, Corvallis.

Works exploring real and imagined icons comprise the program. Joseph Turrin’s “The Scarecrow Overture” from his opera of the same name opens the program. The 2010 work is based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story “Feathertop” about a witch who brings a scarecrow to life. After conjuring mayhem and trouble, the witch is surprised to discover the power of love and a true heart.

“Three American Icons” by English composer Judith Bingham closes the first half. The work departs from traditional icons of Americana, instead evoking three scenes set against the background of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kenned. The mid-century icons Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe and the infamous grassy knoll in Dallas, Texas are depicted in a quirky French Suite-style tableau of 1950’s and 60’s big band music, cult television and cultural change.

Percy Grainger’s 1937 masterpiece “Lincolnshire Posy” opens the second half of the concert. The six movement of Grainger’s “bunch of wildflowers” are all based on folk songs collected during an excursion to Lincolnshire, England in 1905-1906. Grainger resisted the whims of his contemporaries and did not attempt to modernize the folk songs. Rather, he presented them simply as the singers themselves presented them to him. Irregular rhythms, a rough-hewn folk style and brilliant, colorful orchestration abound in the true masterpiece of the wind band literature.

“Rumpelstilschzen” by Jess Turner, closes the program. Over its 19 minutes, Turner sweeps the audience into a land of make believe in three movements each depicting a pivotal part of the fairy tale store: “Spinning Straw into Gold”; “Night (The Maiden’s Lament)”; and “Rumpelstilczhen’s Furiant (Moto Perpetuo).”

General admission tickets $5 advance, $10 door. OSU students with ID and K-12 youth admitted free. Advance tickets available online at: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/SACevents. For accommodations relating to a disability, please call 541-737-4671 at least one week in advance.

-30-

Corvallis-OSU Symphony, violin soloist Jessica Lambert celebrate Bernstein Centenary Nov. 18

November 02, 2018 in Orchestra

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 2 November 2018

Corvallis-OSU Symphony, violin soloist Jessica Lambert celebrate Bernstein Centenary Nov. 18

By Zachary C. Person

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Marlan Carlson presents its season opening concert “Bernstein 100” at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, November 18.

The concert will be held in the Austin Auditorium at The LaSells Stewart Center, 875 SW 26th Street, Corvallis.

Arthur Honegger’s programmatic “Pacific 231” (1923) opens the program. The widely performed work vividly evokes a steam locomotive gathering terrifying speed and wildly racing down the tracks before the relentless machine finally grinds to a noisy, exhausted halt.

Violinist Jessica Lambert, concertmaster of orchestra since 2007, joins as soloist for Leonard Bernstein’s infrequently performed “Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium).” While not strictly programmatic, the 1954 composition is based on Bernstein’s interpretation of Plato’s famed dialogue “The Symposium.” Bernstein explained that “the music, like the dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love, and generally follows the Platonic form through the succession of speakers at the banquet.” Each of the five movements draws its focus from characters in the dialogue: I. Phaedrus; Pausanias; II. Aristophanes; III. Eryximachus; IV. Agathon; V. Socrates.

Lambert is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Zvi Zeitlin and members of the Cleveland String Quartet. She is artistic director of the Oregon State University Chamber Music Workshop and maintains a large private studio in Corvallis. Previous professional engagements include the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, the El Paso Symphony and the El Paso Pro Musica.

Carl Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony, Op. 50 (1922) comprises the entire second half of the program. Unusually, the symphony eschews the traditional symphonic form and is written in only two lengthy and highly contrasting movements. The inclusion of Nielsen’s work celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s conducting legacy and influence on modern concert programming. Bernstein was long a champion of works by Carl Nielsen, Jean Sibelius and other (at the time) ‘neglected’ composers including Gustav Mahler, and his profound impact as an interpreter and conductor of works by lesser-known composers forms one of the most important and lasting parts of his tremendous legacy.

The Corvallis-OSU Symphony will continue its exploration of Leonard Bernstein’s legacy throughout the remainder of the 2018-2019 season. On November 30, the orchestra will be joined by the OSU Chamber Choir for a performance of Bernstein’s charming “Chichester Psalms.” In February, Maestro Carlson will lead the ensemble in a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s savage “Rite of Spring” and in May, the orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler’s heart wrenching ninth and final symphony. The Stravinsky and Mahler works were at the core of Bernstein’s conducting repertoire and his interpretation and approach of both masterpieces have long stood the test of time.

-30-