Symphony
Cal Poly Symphony Winter Concert: 'Student Showcase/Orchesis'
Sunday, March 8, 2015
3 p.m. Harman Hall, Performing Arts Center
The Cal Poly Symphony's Winter Concert will be a collaborative performance celebrating the talents of student soloists and members of the university's Orchesis Dance Company.
The Student Soloist Showcase will include performances by the five instrumentalists and three vocalists who won the Music Department's Solo Competition.
Instrumentalists include Rose Doylemason, who will play Eric Ewazen's Concerto for Bass Trombone, first movement; Leah Anderson, who will play "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof" on tuba; Daniel Diaz playing Paul Creston's "Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra," first movement; Troy Hanson, performing Giovanni Bottesini's Concerto No. 2 for Double Bass and Orchestra, second movement; and Wicky Woo, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, first movement.
Vocalists include Leah Ginsky performing "Connais-tu le pays?" ("Do You Know the Country?") from Ambroise Thomas' "Mignon"; Shaina Levin singing "Chi'il bel Sogno di Doretta" ("Doretta's Beautiful Dream") from Giacomo Puccini's "La Rondine"; and Alexis Rubell singing "Quando m'en vo" ("When I Walk") — also known as "Musetta's Waltz" — from Puccini's "La Bohème."
All students are music majors except Woo, who is an industrial engineering major.
The program will also include Karl Jenkins' "Palladio," Astor Piazzolla's "Oblivion" and Monty Norman's "The James Bond Theme."
The last three works will feature classical and modern dance choreography performed by Orchesis, Cal Poly's oldest concert dance organization.
Music Department faculty member David Arrivée will conduct the program. Theatre and Dance Department faculty members Diana Stanton, Michelle Walter and Christy McNeil choreographed the dances.
Tickets ($14 and $12 general, $12 and $9 seniors and students)
Cal Poly Symphony Spring Concert featuring Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5
Saturday, June 6, 2015
8 p.m. Harman Hall, Performing Arts Center
In May 1888, after an exhausting conducting tour in Western Europe, Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky felt played out. As he recuperated in Frolovskoye, a beautiful little town in the Russian countryside, he wrote to his patron Nadezhda von Meck "I am dreadfully anxious to prove not only to others, but also to myself, that I am not yet played out as a composer."
A few months later, his fifth symphony was complete, and he had proven to himself, and to the world, that he was capable of crafting a monumental work that is as emotionally powerful as it is musically unified. Played out indeed!
Our final concert features faculty flutist Suzanne Duffy. Currently principal flute for Symphony of the Vines and second flute/piccolo for Opera Santa Barbara, she has performed with Opera San Luis Obispo, the Palm Beach Opera, Santa Barbara Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, and the New World and Indianapolis symphonies, among others.
- Charles Griffes' "Poem for Flute and Orchestra," with faculty soloist Suzanne Duffy
- Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64
Tickets ($14 and $12 general, $12 and $9 seniors and students)