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The Mariposa Symphony
Orchestra's annual Festive Holiday Concert will be presented Saturday,
December 19 at 7:00 in the Fiester Auditorium of Mariposa County
High School, led by the orchestra's Founding Music Director
and Conductor, Les Marsden. Tickets are now on sale for this highly
popular event - which showcases music appropriate to the season.
Marsden urges attendees to give themselves this concert as a holiday
gift: "the greatest way to get into the holiday spirit while taking
an evening's break from gift-wrapping, Christmas cards, shopping,
baking - an affordable evening just for you, from YOUR Mariposa
Symphony Orchestra."
The first half of the concert
will be devoted to Felix Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony, written when
the composer was only 21. He was born into a very prominent,
wealthy Jewish banking family in 1809 but when young Felix was 7,
the family converted to Lutheranism. The boy was captivated by
music and demonstrated prodigious performance talents comparable to
those of Mozart or Beethoven. By 14 he had composed 12 string
symphonies; his first orchestral symphony at 15, the
remarkable Octet at 16 and at age 17, one of the most accomplished
musical works for a composer of any age: the Overture to "A
Midsummer Night's Dream." Many musicologists consider Mendelssohn
to have been the greatest child composer prodigy of all time,
superior even to Mozart. The concert will also
commemorate Mendelssohn's birth bicentennial through this
performance of the 5th Symphony - subtitled the "Reformation"
Symphony because Mendelssohn built the entire fourth movement finale
around one of the oldest tunes from the Protestant literature: "Ein
feste' Burg ist unser Gott" composed by Martin Luther.
The concert will also
feature the overture to Richard Wagner's only comic opera: "Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg." The opera from which this overture is
taken is set in Germany at about the time of Martin Luther's
composition of "Ein feste' Burg ist unser Gott." The MSO will also
perform the overture and pastoral symphony from Handel's "Messiah,"
as re-orchestrated by Mozart as well as the Intermezzo from Pietro
Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" - the heart-rending music heard
during the more violent moments in the film "Raging Bull." The
MSO's own Dr. Phillip Smith's "Dr. Smith's Christmas Fantasy" will
return, and another seasonal piece will be heard: Ralph Vaughan
Williams' "Greensleeves Fantasy" perhaps the most beautiful
treatment of that famous tune, also known as "What Child is This?"
The concert will close with Marsden's "Sierra Christmas Party" - a
piece which has closed every Holiday Concert of the MSO by popular
demand since its first performance in 2002.
Intermission refreshments will
be offered by the Mariposa High School Grizzly Band Boosters.
The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra's annual Festive Holiday Concert
will be held on Saturday, December 19 at 7:00 PM in the Fiester
Auditorium of Mariposa County High School. For further information
or tickets, call or visit the Mariposa County Arts Council, Inc.,
parent organization of the MSO at (209) 966-3155 (Monday - Friday,
9/AM-5/PM) The Arts Council Office is located at 5009 Fifth Street
(adjacent to The Pizza Factory) in beautiful historic
Mariposa. Tickets are offered at the MSO's always-affordable
prices: $6 for adults and $4 for students; tickets are
also available at the Mariposa County Visitors Center at the north
end of town across from the Miners Inn; call the Visitors Center at
(209) 966-7081 for hours.
Les Marsden
Founding Music Director and Conductor,
The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra Music and Mariposa? Ahhhhh, Paradise!!! http://arts-mariposa.org/symphony.html http://www.geocities.com/~jbenz/lesbio.html |
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