Clinton Symphony Orchestra’s 65th season winter concert will be played at 7:30 p.m. Saturday [2/9] in the Morrison High School auditorium. Conductor Brian Dollinger and the 50 musicians of the orchestra have included music especially appropriate for the Valentine season.
The program will open with the overture to Carl Maria von Weber’s groundbreaking opera Der Freischutz (translated as The Marksman). The story is a shooting contest in which the winner is awarded the hand of a fair maiden, a theme that seems especially prominent in operas.
Edward Elgar’s lovesong to his then fiancé, Salut d’Amour is next, followed by Vocalise, the final song from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 14 Romances.
The Symphony No. 3 in C Major by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius will complete the program. The work comes between the romantic intensity of the composer’s first two symphonies, and his more complex later symphonies. It is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece, according to Dollinger.
The Orchestra’s February concert usually features the winner of their January Young Artist Auditions, but judges declared no winner this year. They did, however, recognize two young musicians for special mention. They are Kimzey Spreeman of Sterling, violinist, a sophomore at Sterling High School; and Sofia Scott of Morrison, flutist, and a sophomore at Unity Christian School. Each will be recognized and awarded a scholarship from the Symphony at Saturday’s concert.
Tickets are $20 for adults, and all students are admitted free of charge. In addition, a student may sponsor an accompanying adult for a half-price ticket, available at the door. Adult tickets in advance are available at Fitzgerald Pharmacy in Morrison, Tegeler Music in Clinton, Grummert’s Hardware in Sterling, and on the Symphony’s website at www.clintonsymphony.org.
Full program notes on the music to be performed are also available on the website.