Much fun was had during concert week activities!

Our concert week activities began with an outstanding vocal master class with Christine Brewer for University of Oregon music majors! Each participant, including Alishia Piper, Tori Helppie, Emily Hopkins, and Katherine Curtis, gave a lovely performance and it was amazing to hear their artistic interpretations become refined during their short time working with Ms. Brewer. Thank you to Laura Avery for sponsoring the Laura Avery Visiting Masters program!

Pictured above: Milagro Vargas, Christine Brewer, Katherine Curtis, Emily Hopkins, Karen Esquivel, Alishia Piper, Laura Avery, Tori Helppie, and Eric Mentzel.

 

 

On Wednesday, Christine Brewer joined Maestro Rachev for our Guild Concert Preview to discuss Strauss's Four Last Songs. Excitement grew among our audience members as they learned more about the beautiful piece and Ms. Brewer's interpretation of it. Maestro Rachev concluded the preview with an enlightening discussion about Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

 

 

Our final concert week activity featured a waltz lesson, given by Linda and Edward Staver of Staver DanceSport, to educate audience members about that night's performance of Ravel's La valse. Needless to say, we all had a great time! Thank you, Linda and Edward! Part of the Sound Perspectives series.

 

New education programs are off to a great start!

The Eugene Symphony Education Department's two pilot programs for the 2012-13 season began with a bang past week!

Volunteers helped kick off Symphonic Adventures, an in-school music program for third grade classrooms, by teaching our professionally designed lesson plans to eager students in the 4J, Bethel, and Springfield school districts. Below you'll see our fabulous volunteer, Diane Livermore, teaching rhythm at Howard Elementary.

Each lesson plan is followed by a performance by a Eugene Symphony musician or chamber group. This month's featured musician is percussionist Brian Scott, who is featured in a video at the beginning and end of each lesson. We have received overwhelmingly positive responses about Brian and the students feel like they're meeting a celebrity!


Link Up, a program designed by Carnegie Hall, also began this past week with Annalisa Morton and Kristen Halay teaching third through fifth graders in 4J and Springfield afterschool programs. In collaboration with Willamalane Parks and Recreation Center and 4J's BEST program, students in Chavez, River Road, Thurston, and Page Elementary Schools are learning how to play recorder and will perform on-stage with the Eugene Symphony for our November 13 & 14 youth concerts. What an opportunity!

 

Kristen Halay teaching Link Up to River Road Elementary School students.

 

 



Dun, dun, dun, dunnnnn!

A regular on the world’s greatest concert and opera stages, Metropolitan Opera star Christine Brewer joins the Eugene Symphony on Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 8 p.m. at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Music Director Danail Rachev conducts Brewer in a program that also includes Ravel’s La valse and a work known and loved the world over, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

 

A global star with a reputation as a “superlative Strauss singer” (The New York Times), Brewer’s range, golden tone, boundless power and control make her a favorite of the stage as well as a sought-after recording artist. With a vocal technique once described “as refreshingly unfussy as her personality” (The Financial Times), Brewer breaks the mold of the traditional opera diva in countless ways. She freely admits to fibbing about her fried chicken, tearing up during Toy Story 3, hosting a boisterous, annual Hootenanny in her small-town Illinois backyard each summer, and entertaining dreams of running for the Senate.

On October 18, Brewer performs Four Last Songs, Strauss’s musical epitaph, which premiered a year after the composer’s death. Three of the songs are based on Herman Hesse poems and set in a mini-cycle from spring to autumn and on to sleep (the initial work opens at twilight).  Though the soaring melodies ruminate on parting and death—Strauss was 83 when he composed the works—the full orchestra’s accompaniment infuses the work with a profound serenity.

The evening concludes with Beethoven's powerful Symphony No. 5. With its universally recognized opening four notes, the work has endured as one of the world's most popular pieces of music since its Vienna premiere (conducted by the composer himself) in 1808.

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 is sponsored by Hilton Eugene and Conference Center.   Tickets are available through the Hult Center box office (541-682-5000) or online at eugenesymphony.org.