"Final Frontier "
Symphony Closes Season with Planetary Voyage
and Young Soloists
The North State Symphony completes its 2007-08 season on April
19 and 20th with concerts featuring "The Planets," by
Gustav Holst, one of the most popular pieces in the orchestral
world -- or solar system -- in a concert entitled "The Final
Frontier."
Each of the movements of "The Planets" describes one
of the orbiting spheres according to its role in the zodiac. "Mars,
the Bringer of War" and "Neptune, the Mystic" are
among the movements.
According to Kyle Wiley Pickett, Music Director of North State
Symphony, "the music of 'The Planets' is so descriptive and
varied, as Holst uses fantastic effects to show the different worlds.
It’s really fun for the musicians, and especially fun for
the conductor. In fact, The Planets helped to turn me into a conductor!
I remember sitting in the orchestra, the first time I played the
piece, wishing that I could be playing all the parts - not just
the flute part. I realized that the closest I could get to that
was to conduct the work. Because of my history with the piece,
I'm always excited to conduct it."
The concert will open with two Nocturnes by Debussy. Pickett compared
these works to "Impressionist paintings like those by Monet
or Van Gogh, only Debussy does it in sound!"
Two soloists are featured on the concert, the winners of the Symphony’s
2007 Young Artist Auditions competition. Ayako Nakamura, a CSU,
Chico exchange student from Japan, will play the Arutunian Trumpet
Concerto, according to Pickett a "flashy, almost jazzy" work
by an Armenian composer of the 20th century. Chelsea Morden, a
high school senior from Humboldt County, will perform the first
movement of the Violin Concerto by Dimitri Kabalevsky, also a mid-20th
century composer from the former Soviet Union.
The concerts are scheduled for April 19 at 7:30 in the Cascade
Theatre in Redding; on April 20 at 2:00 in Laxson Auditorium on
the CSU, Chico campus, and the same evening at 7:30 at the State
Theatre in Red Bluff. Tickets are available for the Redding performance
by calling 243-8877; for Chico by calling 898-5984, and for Red
Bluff by calling 529-2787.
Conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett will give a free pre-concert talk
before the Redding and Chico concerts one hour before the concerts
begin.
Tickets and information for the 2008-09 season of the North State
Symphony will be available at the April 19 and 20 concerts.
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The North State Symphony's season is supported by generous donations
from many individuals, as well as from Tri Counties Bank and Matson & Isom.
NSS is funded in part by Student Instructionally Related Activity
Fees.
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