The Power of Music

First is music by the American composer Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981), whose Starburst for string orchestra portrays the formation of new stars in a galaxy.

Prokiev: Classical Symphony, op.25 (Symphony No.1), follows.

Weber's delightful Bassoon Concerto, ends the first half, with the SBSO's principal bassoonist Mary Beth Minnis as soloist.

The evening ends with what is surely the most famous symphony of all time,

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Memorable for the first four notes that permeate the whole work, for the journey from C minor to the triumphal ending in C major, and for the first ever use in a symphony of piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones, the Symphony provides an uplifting end to the season.

Thank you to our sponsors for this concert Garber Automotive Group, Tri-Star Trust and community supporters The Jury Foundation, Patricia G. Rennert Trust, Paul & Bonnie Chaffee, and guest artist supports Jim & Christine Church.

The season opener comprises three pieces by composers with very distinctive voices.

José Pablo Moncayo composed Huapango in 1941 using idiomatic Mexican dances and a driving rhythm section that reflects his own career as a percussionist.

Mason Bates (b. 1977) is an American composer who demonstrates his ease with both the symphony orchestra and with electronica in the symphonic poem The B Sides: Five Pieces for Orchestra. The five movements illustrate various American sights and sounds including a 1965 spacewalk (with recorded dialogue between the actual astronauts) and “Warehouse Medicine” in honor of techno’s Detroit birthplace.

Dmitri Shostakovich was a composer caught between his own creative ideas and the control of Soviet authorities in the mid-20th century. He had been condemned by the government for what they considered inappropriate learnedness, so in 1937 he wrote his 5th Symphony to rehabilitate himself. The resulting work was both brilliant and subtly filled with irony.

Program Notes  for “Music on the Cutting Edge” are Available Here.

Over the last century, some Black composers have found their place in European-based classical music, while others have been at the forefront of creating distinctively Black styles of American music such as blues, jazz, and Motown. Tonight’s program honors composers from all these traditions.

Julia Perry’s Short Piece for Orchestra (1943) is full of exciting musical contrasts. Orchestral arrangements of popular standards follow, one group by Duke Ellington, another by Louis Armstrong, and a final set of Motown songs.

The main feature is William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony (1930), in which the composer merged a formal symphonic structure with the rhythms and idioms of blues and jazz.

First is music by the American composer Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981), whose Starburst for string orchestra portrays the formation of new stars in a galaxy.

Prokiev: Classical Symphony, op.25 (Symphony No.1), follows.

Weber’s delightful Bassoon Concerto, ends the first half, with the SBSO’s principal bassoonist Mary Beth Minnis as soloist.

The evening ends with what is surely the most famous symphony of all time,

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Memorable for the first four notes that permeate the whole work, for the journey from C minor to the triumphal ending in C major, and for the first ever use in a symphony of piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones, the Symphony provides an uplifting end to the season.