VIRGINIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES 2017-18 REGENT UNIVERSITY CLASSICS SERIES
HAMPTON ROADS, VA [MAY 2, 2017] — The Virginia Symphony Orchestra announced today its programming for the 2017-2018 Regent Classics Series. Sponsored by Regent University, this series brings four concerts of classical programming to the University’s campus in Virginia Beach.
The four-concert series begins Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 8 p.m. with Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. The program opens with Respighi’s Botticelli Triptych, a marvelous and colorful piece inspired by Italian painter Sandro Botticelli’s Early Renaissance paintings in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Principal Clarinet Michael Byerly makes his VSO solo debut in Aaron Copland’s dreamy Clarinet Concerto. Commissioned by jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman in 1947, Copland’s Clarinet Concerto was influenced by Brazilian folk music heard on his travels through South America. The two-movement concerto is languid yet expressive in its first movement and becomes restive and audacious in the second. The concert concludes with Brahms’ mellow and airy Serenade No. 2 constructed around a multi-movement suite.
On Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 8 p.m., the second concert of the series begins with Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galanta. An avid collector of Hungarian folk songs, Kodály based the piece on the folk music of Galanta, and bears an evocative, fervent quality that ignites glowing orchestral sonorities.
The program proceeds with Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. This “lush, richly textured” work is set to excerpts from a 1938 prose poem by James Agee that later became a preamble his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Death in the Family (1957). The concert concludes with Beethoven’s more relaxed and blithe Symphony No. 2, one of the final works of his “early period.”
As with tradition, the Symphony will perform Handel’s Messiah on Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8 p.m. Benjamin Rous conducts Handel’s revered oratorio, Messiah. Get in the spirit of the season with this distinguished performance of Handel’s sacred masterpiece that presents the austere and dramatic narrative of the Messiah. This concert is also sponsored by the Christian Broadcasting Network.
The season concludes Friday, May 18, 2018 at 8 p.m. with Musical Genius “Squared.” This remarkable performance will feature signature works by two musical icons – arguably the greatest composer of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – together with “America’s foremost composer,” Aaron Copland. Mozart’s Haffner Symphony is one of his most famous, and like many of his works, has a backstory nearly as interesting as the music itself. Copland’s Appalachian Spring was a commission by famed dancer Martha Graham, and has become an American anthem through the years, as important to our national heritage as apple pie.
Single tickets go on sale in July 31, 2017. Subscriptions are available for purchase by section and range from $90 to $221. To purchase, call 757.892.6366, visit www.virginiasymphony.org or stop by the Virginia Symphony Box Office at 150 Boush Street, Suite 201, Norfolk, VA 23510 from 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday – Friday.
For group sales of 10 or more, call 757.213.1436.
Under the leadership of GRAMMY-winning music director JoAnn Falletta, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra is Virginia’s preeminent professional symphony orchestra with a mission of inspiring, educating and connecting audiences of all ages.
Founded in 1921, it is ranked in the top ten percent of professional orchestras nationwide and serves the entire Southeastern Virginia region with Classics, Pops and Family concert series in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg as well as performances in outlying Virginia and North Carolina communities, reaching nearly 150,000 concert-goers every year. Additionally, the orchestra annually reaches 45,000 children, students and lifelong learners with its education and community programs. The Virginia Symphony has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and is the cornerstone of the performing arts in Hampton Roads.
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2017-2018 Regent University Classics Series At-a-Glance
Programs, artists, venues, and dates are subject to change.
Copland’s Clarinet Concerto
Saturday, October 14, 2017 | 8PM
JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Michael Byerly, clarinet
Respighi: Botticelli Triptych 18
Copland: Clarinet Concerto
Brahms: Serenade No. 2
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2
Saturday, November 11, 2017 | 8PM
JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Aundi Marie Moore, soprano
Kodaly: Dances of Galanta
Barber: Knoxville, Summer of 1915
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2
Handel’s Messiah
Thursday, December 14, 2017 | 8PM
Benjamin Rous, conductor
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Robert Shoup, chorusmaster
Handel: Messiah
Musical Genius “Squared”
Friday, May 18, 2018 | 8PM
Benjamin Rous, conductor
Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni
Mozart: Symphony No. 35, Haffner
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Copland: “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2017
Contact: Monica Meyer, Director of Marketing
Phone: 757.213.1431 | email: mmeyer@virginiasymphony.org
Contact: Derek Page, Marketing & Public Relations Manager
Phone: 757.213.1420 | email: dpage@virginiasymphony.org
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