What better way to open the season than with three musical prodigies: Mozart, Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn!
As part of ACO's Young Artist Discovery Program, Lindsay Garritson will perform the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto no. 2. This rising star from the Treasure Coast area plays the brilliant virtuosic piece pianists love and we think you will also. Symphony no. 4, The Italian is Felix Mendelssohn's most popular and jolliest symphony, growing out of a trip he made through the principal cities of Italy in 1830-31.
Once again we can enjoy Mendelssohn in his famous Overture, A Midsummer Night's Dream which will be followed by Samuel Barber's beloved and adored Adagio for Strings, played to instant success in 1938 by Toscanini. Barber was one of the few Americans able to express European romantic and lyrical style.
The Overture, Scherzo and Finale of Schumann engages us and then we hear from the great master Beethoven in the Symphony no. 4 in B flat Major. This work is elegant, graceful and ends brilliantly.
Always a crowd pleaser, Mozart's Overture, The Marriage of Figaro opens this concert.
Gerald Plain's Clawhammer is based on the technique often used by country musicians when picking the strings. This "short, amusing and cute piece" according to our maestro, also adds some technical electronic sounds for an enjoyable and entertaining piece.
Elmar Oliveira is an internationally known violinist who uses his great talent in Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto in D minor. We are delighted to have this particular demanding concerto heard within our season as a first for the ACO.
The closing piece in the concert is the brilliant and buoyant Schubert Symphony no. 2, which begins slowly and quickly moves to an active and vibrant gem of a piece.
Experience the merriment of the Overture, II Signor Bruschino by Rossini, the master of comic opera. Moving musically from Italy to the United States, we hear music with notable American themes such as "Simple Gifts" the Shaker hymn tune in Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring.
Serge Koussevitsky, Russian born and a naturalized American Citizen, was a double bass performer humself. his melodious Double Bass Concerto is considered quintessential to the double bass repertoire and will be played by our talented principal, Luis Gomez.
Sensuous sounds and threads of emotion carry through the beautiful Siegfried Idyll by Wagner, contrasting with the setting for the French romp by Jacques Ibert. The Divertissement is a joyous conclusion to the ACO's twenty-second season.
