Chamber, symphony orchestras to open 2002 season

Chamber, symphony orchestras to open 2002 season
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BY ELLEN CHANG
Rice News Staff

Embracing both
classical music and contemporary sounds, the Shepherd School
Chamber Orchestra begins its fall concert series Sept. 28.

The concert begins
with Carl Maria von Weber’s “‘Preziosa’
Overture” that will be conducted by David In-Jae Cho,
a graduate music student. The Viennese composer wrote the
overture for a play called “Preziosa,” which is
about a young gypsy who marries an aristocrat. The play
was based on the novel “Little Gypsy” by Miguel
de Cervantes. The piece begins with a Spanish bolero, is
followed by a gypsy march and has been rarely performed.

Alberto Ginastera’s
piece “Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, Op. 25”
(Catherine Barrett, soloist) uses only percussion instruments.
The Argentine composer wrote music for all genres, including
theater and movies. His pieces retain Argentine traditions.

Edgard Varèse’s
“Ionisation” also uses a great deal of percussion
in the piece, said Larry Rachleff, director of the symphony
and chamber orchestras and conductor of both concerts. The
piece is a precursor of many of the sounds used in Ginastera’s
work, he said.

The piece includes
two anvils, two sirens and a lion’s roar. The French
composer was one of the great innovators of experimental
music and lived most of his life in the United States.

Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart’s “Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 ‘Prague’”
was one of the last symphonies he worked on before his death
at the age of 35. He dedicated the symphony to Prague, whose
citizens were devoted to him and his music at a time when
his hometown of Vienna had turned its back on him.

The Weber and
Mozart pieces “signify the essence of the 18th-century
classical orchestra,” Rachleff said.

The concert is
free and begins at 8 p.m. at Stude Concert Hall, Alice Pratt
Brown Hall. The next Chamber Orchestra performance will
be Nov. 3 and will feature pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach,
Edvard Grieg and Aaron Copland.

The symphony
orchestra begins its season Oct. 4 and 5 with performances
at 8 p.m. at Stude Concert Hall.

The concert begins
with 20th-century American composer Samuel Barber’s
piece, “Overture to ‘The School for Scandal.’”

An exciting and
energetic jazz piece, the overture is rhythmically intense
and has a large orchestra, Rachleff said.

Antonín
Dvorák’s “Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
in B Minor, Op. 14” (Norman Fischer, soloist), was
written when he came to the United States to teach young
composers at the National Conservatory in New York. He is
the best-known and world’s most-played Czech composer
of all time.

Johannes Brahms’
“Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68” was written
in a German/Austrian style. Brahms did not complete the
symphony until he was 43 years old because he was daunted
by the influence of Ludwig van Beethoven, said Rachleff.
Most composers tend to write symphonies when they are younger.

“He waited
until he felt he could write an effective work,” he
said.

Tickets are $7
for the public and $5 for students and senior citizens.
Call (713) 348-8000 for tickets, reserved seating only.

The symphony’s
next concert will be Nov. 2 and features works from Béla
Bartók, Anton Webern and Richard Strauss.