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2011-2012 Season
- From the New World
- Billy Ocean
- James Galway
- Handel's Messiah
- Holiday Pops
- Romantic Showcase
- American Voices
- KC & Sunshine Band
- Russian Feast
- The Music of Queen
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Venues / Locations
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What to Expect
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On the Road
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Symphony Underground
Romantic Showcase
Roanoke Symphony Orchestra
David Stewart Wiley, Conductor
This event is partially supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.About this Program More Ways To BuyOur special pre-Valentine's program puts the full Roanoke Symphony Orchestra on display. We will hear American master composer Howard Hanson's "Romantic" Symphony and Mahler's musical love letter to his beloved Alma. This rich program of romantic music showcases the RSO and the beautiful acoustics of Shaftman Performance Hall at Jefferson Center.
Bernstein One Hand, One Heart from
West Side StoryAbout this Music LEONARD BERNSTEIN
One Hand, One Heart from West Side Story
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's lovely duet, "One Hand, One Heart," was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. Later, with the help of Oscar Hammerstein, West Side Story script write Arthur Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart" again -- which he considered too beautiful and pristine for the balcony scene -- to the scene set in the bridal shop.Mahler Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
"Love letter to Alma"About this Music GUSTAV MAHLER
Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
The Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler's cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features is the fourth movement (Adagietto) -- arguably Mahler's most famous single piece of music -- the most frequently performed extract from Mahler's works.
The conclusion of the Fifth came from out of nowhere. Invited on November 7 to dine at a friend's home, he met the "most beautiful girl in Vienna," Alma Schindler. Mahler fell almost instantly in love with her. Within two months, they were engaged. At some point during that time, Mahler composed the movement that was to become the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony and sent it to Alma as a sort of musical love letter. She immediately understood: after all, it included not only a quotation from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, but also a passionate text by Mahler himself. But the Adagietto needs no quotation from Wagner nor any text to make its meaning clear. In simple three-part form and set for string orchestra and harp, its opening melody is full of endless and ineffable longing. Its central section increases in intensity until its sublime and quiet climax. The return of the opening melody builds to a climax of earth-shattering passion and then subsides into a long, lingering coda of profound contentment.
Hanson Symphony No. 2, "Romantic" About this Music HOWARD HANSON
Symphony No. 2 in D-flat Major, Op. 30, "Romantic"
Hanson has often been compared to Sibelius, partly because of his ancestry, and partly because of shared principles. Like Sibelius, Hanson's approach to symphonic structure was thematic development throughout the work, spanning the movements. Typically, the movements of a symphony, though related to one another in some ways, do not often reiterate themes throughout, like a rondo. When Sibelius wished to do that, he wrote a one-movement symphony. In Hanson's Romantic Symphony, both the principle and secondary themes appear in all three movements
Hanson's music does share with Sibelius a bleak, windswept quality (less apparenty in this symphony than in his first, the "Nordic"), but also has hints of Mahler. It is interesting to note that Sibelius and Mahler were almost bipolar when it came to symphonic principles, Sibelius believing that a symphony should have a lean structure, and Mahler arguing that the symphony should "embrace the world." Hanson seemed capable of combining these two viewpoints. The Second Symphony was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and was first performed in 1930. It followed his First ("Nordic") Symphony by eight years
If any of this music seems familiar to you, it may be because it was used at the end of the film Alien, when the character played by Sigourney Weaver blasts the alien out ofthe space shuttle. The music is picked up at a dramatic moment in the second movement and quickly subsides to a placid, dream-like sequence which runs on through the end credits. It suggests the peaceful suspended animation of the heroine as she drifts quietly off in space, hoping to be rescued.
David Stewart Wiley Conductor About this Artist
David Stewart Wiley serves concurrently as Music Director & Conductor of our Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and New York's Long Island Philharmonic. Prior to these positions, he served as Assistant Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and, before that, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In demand as a guest conductor, pianist, and composer, Maestro Wiley has performed all over the world including numerous countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He has led top American orchestras including the symphonies of Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Oregon, Saint Louis, San Francisco, and Utah. David Stewart Wiley is the recipient of the Aspen Conducting Prize (1993), a Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood, the Daniels Prize in Music & Literature from Tufts University, and Virginia's Perry F. Kendig Award for Service to the Arts. Maestro Wiley holds four degrees: Doctor and Master of Music degrees in Conducting from Indiana University, a degree in piano performance with honors from the New England Conservatory, and a degree in Religion, summa cum laude, from Tufts University.
As a solo pianist, David Stewart Wiley has performed with numerous major orchestras throughout the United States and has appeared as a jazz pianist in Boston's Symphony Hall and in recital appearances throughout the U.S. as well as in China, Russia, Romania, Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria. Wiley has collaborated with a diverse list of top artists in the Classical and Pops world, including Billy Joel, Jessye Norman, Leonard Bernstein, Sir James Galway, Midori, Lynn Harrell, John Williams, David Kim, Elmar Oliveira, Jon Nakamatsu, Andre Watts, Norman Krieger, Zuill Bailey, Bernadette Peters, Bruce Hornsby, Jennifer Holliday, Marvin Hamlisch, Mercedes Ellington, Lou Rawls, Doc Severinsen, Michael McDonald, Art Garfunkel, the Pointer Sisters, Ben Vereen, Kool & the Gang, and the Sounds of Blackness. The RSO & Wiley announced that David will extend his contract with the RSO through 2013.
KeyNotes - Pre-Concert w/ David Stewart Wiley 2:00 PM
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541 Luck Ave SW 24016
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Fax: 540.343.0065 | Box Office: 540.343.9127
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