Dramatic Beethoven Saturday, March 1, 7:30 p.m. Keith Hamm, viola soloist Scott Wentworth & Marion Adler, dramatic reading
Daniel Warren, guest conductor
The Stratford Symphony Orchestra's March 1 concert, Dramatic Beethoven, will offer concertgoers an experience rich in drama, both musical and theatrical. Scott Wentworth and Marion Adler, whose music and theatrical talents are well known to followers of the Stratford Festival and the Stratford arts community, will perform dramatic readings that connect with Ludwig van Beethoven's love of the countryside as expressed in his Pastoral Symphony and, in sharp contrast, with the tensions and strife surrounding war as expressed in his Coriolan Overture, which opens the concert. Their readings will also include Shakespeare sonnets that complement compositions by Carl Maria von Weber and Max Bruch (see below). Keith Hamm, winner of the 2011 SSO Emerging Artists Concerto Competition, will return to perform viola solos in Weber's Andante and Hungarian Rondo and Bruch's Romance for Viola and Orchestra. Guest conductor will be Daniel Warren, who has shaped the program to reflect a musical and artistic vision of the "country" nature of Stratford. Mr. Warren is the first of six candidates invited to plan and conduct a Stratford Symphony concert as part of an audition process that will culminate in the naming of an SSO principal conductor in March 2015. The concert will be held at Knox Presbyterian Church, Ontario and Waterloo streets in Stratford, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 1, with a reception following. Tickets ($35 for adults, $20 for students) are available at Fanfare Books, Blowes Stationery and Downie Street Bakehouse in Stratford and Lyric Flowers in St. Marys, as well as online and at the door. For additional information contact Sharon McDonald, SSO office (519-271-0990). |