Welcome to our Winter Orchestra Concert for 2023!! Tonight each grade level orchestra will present a different Hungarian Dance by the German composer, Johannes Brahms. Originally written for piano 4 hands, Brahms later orchestrated the dance tunes for orchestra and gained great acclaim and financial reward. There are 21 in total, but only three that are truly original compositions, making most of these based on Hungarian folk melodies, including the ones we are playing. Each dance provides tremendous educational material to be taught to the string students, while also being delightful selections for the listener!
As well, the grade level orchestra will present a piece written for this grade level that is based on a tremendous mythical stories. Mystical Towers, Escape the Lost City, Dreams of a Midsummer's Night are each full of energy and imagination in their own right!
The Chamber Orchestra will welcome the Chamber Choir under the baton of Mr. Taylor Hine to the stage to perform the first movement of Vivaldi's well known "Gloria". This challenging selection is much more typical for high school ensembles to perform so this promises to be a treat!
To cap the night off, the Philharmonic, the school's mighty symphonic orchestra, will perform exciting and challenging selections that will tug at all emotions. The medley from the famous Broadway play "Phantom of the Opera" is full of tension, passion, and love. Russian Easter Overture was written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in dedication to his good friends and fellow composers Alexander Borodin, and Modest Mussorgsky. Although Rimsky-Korsakov was not a Pius man himself, he was always attracted to liturgical themes from the Russian Orthodox tradition. These themes, called Obikhod, were structured by Rimsky-Korsakov to follow the service celebrated on Passion Saturday and extends to the early hours of Easter Sunday in the orthodox rite with antiphonal response singing and bells meant to produce feelings of mystery, passion, and grandeur.
The students have been working very hard on all of these selections, and we do hope you do enjoy the concert tonight!