Community Corner

North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra Opens Sunday With Berlioz, Grieg and Burns

The opening concert, Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. at Swampscott High, marks the NSPO's 66th season.

Music Director Robert Lehmann conducts the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra in an expansive program that musically celebrates artistry when the NSPO begins its 66th season on Sunday, November 10, 2013 with a 3 p.m. concert at Swampscott High School Auditorium.

 

Tickets will be available at the door or can be purchased online at www.nspo.org, $20 general admission, $15 for seniors and students, and free for children up to 12 years old.

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The program will take listeners on a musical journey of art, an artist’s life, and the work of a famous playwright.  Mr. Lehmann opens the season with a premiere presentation of “Goyaesques” by contemporary composer Timothy Burns.  The program steers traditional with selections from Edvard Grieg’s popular “Peer Gynt” and concludes with Hector Berlioz rousing “Symphonie Fantastique.”

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French composer Hector Berlioz’ epic “Symphonie Fantastique” culminates the concert.  First performed in Paris in 1830, the music is the self-portrait of a gifted artist who endures despair and self-destruction brought on by his own passion and imagination.  The symphony’s unique five-movements explore Beethoven and Shakespeare, a festive ball, the Italian countryside, the artist’s suicidal ideations, and a satanic dream.

 

The concert will open, however, with a stroll through an art museum.  The composer, Mr. Burns, 23, is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Composition at the University of Southern Maine. He wrote “Goyaesques”  as a musical depiction of five paintings by the Spanish Painter Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828). The piece opens with a regal fanfare depicting “La familia de Carlos IV,” a portrait of the royal family, then, much like a tour through an art museum, studies Goya’s “Corral de Locos,” “La Maja des nuda,” El baille de San Antonio de la Florida”, and “Saturno devorando a su hijo.” 

 

From the art gallery to the stage, the Orchestra will play selections of Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt,” originally written in 1875 as the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play “Peer Gynt.”

 

The North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1948 and plays a series of three subscription concerts each year, in addition to special performances in North Shore communities.  More information is available at the Orchestra’s website, www.nspo.org.

 


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