Auburn Symphony’s Springtime “Rite,” With Strauss on the Side

Auburn Symphony’s Springtime “Rite,” With Strauss on the Side

The Rite is receiving many performances this season, one of them this past weekend by the Auburn Symphony Orchestra at that city’s Performing Arts Center. For this concert, conductor Stewart Kershaw coupled it with Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration, a tone poem on essentially the same theme, composed some 22 years earlier. Continue reading Auburn Symphony’s Springtime “Rite,” With Strauss on the Side

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for April

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for April

This month, head to the classical concert hall for some serious time-traveling. Experience a cantata that was lost of the world for hundreds of years, then expand your horizons with new local music that’s hot off the press. No matter if you’re a fan of modern dance, medieval literature, or sports and games, there’s something on the calendar for you this April. Continue reading What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for April

Auburn Symphony Finds Greats Off the Beaten Track

Auburn Symphony Finds Greats Off the Beaten Track

It isn’t one of his angry works. I didn’t hear any underlying angst in it. The violin plays almost without a break through the entire half hour of the concerto, serenely above lower winds and strings in the first movement, urgent but jaunty rather than ominous in the second. The unusual passacaglia which is the third movement has more ominous portent in the orchestra while the violin floats above, and at the end is a long cadenza for the soloist which feels like more of an emotional statement than a bravura display of fireworks. Continue reading Auburn Symphony Finds Greats Off the Beaten Track