Événement

Rainier Symphony - Celestial Voices

We're very pleased to be able to reschedule one of the selections from our snow-cancelled February concerts: our principal oboist Michael Melnick will step out of the wind section to solo on Vaughan-Williams' pastoral Oboe Concerto in A minor. We will also perform two movements from Claude Debussy's Nocturnes, and Gustav Holst's most famous work, The Planets. This music leaves this world on an exploration of ethereal colors, textures, images, and voices.

Ralph Vaughan-Williams: Concerto in A minor for Oboe and Strings
Michael Melnick, oboe
Claude Debussy: Nocturnes
No 1 Nuages (Cloud)
No 2 Fetes (Feast)
Gustav Holst: The Planets
I. Mars, the Bringer of War
II. Venus, the Bringer of Peace
III. Mercury, the Winged Messenger
IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
V. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
VI. Uranus, the Magician
VII. Neptune, the Mystic

Saturday 4/6/19 7:30 pm
Sunday 4/7/19 3:00 pm

Tickets:
$18 Adult / $12 Student or Senior
Children 12 and under Free

Concert location:
Foster Performing Arts Center
4242 S 144th St, Tukwila

Jeffery N. Lund, Music Director
Ilkka Talvi, Concertmaster

More about the concert:

The first half of this concert features the music of Impressionist composer Claude Debussy. His piece Nocturnes does not fall into the traditional style or form of a nocturne, music for night or evening. Rather, his use of the word was to evoke imagery associated with a particular time of day, and the specific lighting often experienced at that time. His use of orchestral instruments to create a tone-color palette that travels from dark to light, cold to warm, calm to explosive, is a dramatic exercise in showcasing the instruments and voices of the orchestra.

We will also perform the Ralph Vaughan Williams' Oboe Concerto in A minor, which will feature our own principal oboist, Michael Melnick. This concerto is a technical marathon for the string players, which creates a dramatic tone palette for the soloist to draw colors and textures upon.

The second half of this concert will feature Gustav Holst's dramatic and titanic work The Planets. Scored for a massive orchestra, Holst composed music that was meant to depict the character and influence each planet had on the psyche, not the Roman mythological deities which share the planets' names. While some of these are correlated, Holst uses the character of the music to depict the emotions associated with these planets, with the powerful Mars being the most famous. The movements within this work have become some of the most famous and beloved concert pieces, and the massive sound of the orchestra creates an ethereal exploration in sound that will close out our Classics cycles for the 2018-19 season.

In the event of unforeseen circumstances, programs and artists may change without notice.