Now that the pandemic season has wrapped up for the Salt Lake Symphony, we are looking forward to a full orchestra to open the 2021-2022 Season on September 25. It was always our destiny to return, and our program will feature three works that explore destiny, fate, and the meaning of life. The program is filled with some of the most memorable melodies and beloved ever written.
Join us at the new Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center as we take a journey of the spirit through music. In a program that explores how composers describe the indescribable, we will play music that both invites reflection and expresses joy. We are pleased to welcome Utah Symphony Associate Concertmaster Kathryn Eberle, joining us to play Ottorino Respighi's seldomly heard masterpiece Concerto Gregoriano. Spanning over 400 years, the program will also feature will our brass section playing works by Giovanni Gabrielli, and our string section performing Adolphus Hailstork’s Concerto da Chiesa. The program will close with Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber, which the orchestra was primed to perform in March of 2020 when the pandemic struck. Returning to finish this work presents closure and promises to be cathartic for both musicians and patrons.
Holidays are special with the Salt Lake Symphony. Join us for a musical cup of cheer on December 18 at Libby Gardner Concert Hall as we present the sounds of the season! Filled with beloved tunes, cheerful décor, and both old and new classics, you are assured a break from the Christmas rush. Our Happy Holidays concert is an energizing and inspiring evening with the SLS musicians—and the perfect way to celebrate the season.
Have you ever wondered just what is so inspiring about music? Bring the entire family as the Salt Lake Symphony presents "The Story of Music," our annual family concert. This year, audiences will be enthralled with Kile Smith's retelling of the classic tale The Bremen Town Musicians.
It's Back! We are so happy to invite patrons back to Old Vienna for the traditional Vienna Ball. Come dance the night away to the tunes of Johann Strauss, Jr. and company. Special guests include the BYU Ballroom Dance Team, and the Jazz Trio. So put on your dancing shoes, enjoy a bite to eat and bring your checkbook to help support the Salt Lake Symphony at this most anticipated ballroom dance event of the year!
We keep our eyes and ears on Utah talent, for our March program. Schubert's beloved Overture to Die Zauberharfe will open the concert. Also known as the Overture to Rosamunde, the work delights audiences and players alike with its memorable melodies and perfectly balanced writing. The program will also present a world-premiere by Utah composer Andrew Maxfield for soprano and orchestra. Featuring guest artist Michelle Pedersen, Snowdrifts uses evocative poetry from several renown poets, including one you may not recognize as a published writer, our music director, Robert Baldwin. The program will conclude with the Symphony No. 1 in C major by Ludwig van Beethoven. This work will highlight our string and woodwind sections with wonderfully energetic motives and memorable writing, a trademark of the symphonic writing from one of the world's greatest composers.
The Dream of America can be defined many ways, as something realized, or something yet to be achieved. We look at several expressions of the history and hope of our country in our April concert. The program will open with Robert Wendel's newly composed Fanfare for the Frontline Workers. Certainly we have seen few American heroes as worthy as the men and women who helped in various ways throughout the pandemic. The difficult history of slavery will be explored with Florence Price's Ethiopia's Shadow in America. The work deals with not only the tragedy, but also the hope for a better future. A rediscovered talent, Florence Price was one of the leading African-American composers of the 20th century. The program centers on a work by composer Peter Boyer, Ellis Island: The Dream of America. A powerful work, featured on PBS's Great Performances, the music is accentuated with readings of letters from immigrants soon after they landed at Ellis Island. We are happy to welcome the students to perform alongside the symphony for this special evening of music, history, and hope.
We end of 2021-2022 season with beginnings. Beethoven's first symphony signaled the end of the classical period, while Prokofiev’s opening to his oeuvre, composed 120 years later, looked back in the very ideals Beethoven was using. Beethoven's First Symphony is a delightful work in the style of his teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn. We will demonstrate from the stage how Beethoven used and departed from tradition. Similarly, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev tried to espouse the classical ideal while writing in his unmistakable 20th-century style for his first symphony, also known as the Classical Symphony. It's the perfect pairing of innovation and formal perfection. Hilary Coon, our principal oboist, also will also be featured, playing Alessandro Marcello's moving Concerto in C-Minor.
Join us for the KUTV Days of 47 Pops concert with Sterling Poulson and Robert Baldwin as conductors.
We open the 22-23 Season with two rarely heard, but engaging symphonies. Sibelius’s 7th is his final symphony, a study in compact form, almost as if the entire Romantic period has collapsed on itself like a dying star. Lasting merely 20 minutes, this symphony nonetheless has 4 encapsulated movements and enough emotional sweep to take the audience on a memorable journey through the Finnish imagination. When the work was written in 1924, it was a surprise to audiences both in its brevity and depth. Similarly, Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony, written in 1945, was expected to be a grand testament of victory. What Shostakovich gave us, however, was one of his shortest symphonies, albeit a 5-movement work that expresses the happiness of a great weight being lifted, the end of WWII. It is indeed joyous, but also contains the touch of sardonic wit expected from this master’s works. Offsetting these two brief masterpieces, principal oboist Hilary Coon moves to the front of the stage to play Marcello’s endearing oboe concerto, with one of the most beautiful melodies in all the Baroque repertoire.
All Systems GO! T-Minus 10 … 9… 8… Get ready for an exploratory mission of our solar system as the SLS presents an out-of-this-world program! Holst’s The Planets is the main event, each movement concentrating on the astrological, rather than astronomical significance of our solar system.
7… 6…5… Complementing this massive work will be two shorter astronomical works, Haydn’s Overture toIl mondo della luna (The World of the Moon!) is perhaps the earliest example of a space opera (move over Star Wars!) This rarely heard work is full of Haydn’s wit and classical charm.
4… 3… Our own planet is not neglected either. Mason Bates Mothership will highlight the orchestra, and our home planet of Earth, with youthful and optimistic energy and some surprise solo appearances from our orchestra members.
…2… 1… Liftoff! The universe awaits you at Libby Gardner Hall!
The SLS happily returns to our holiday collaboration with the UofU Opera and the SLCC Grand Theatre for 4 performances of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and Leavitt and Buck’s A Christmas Carol. A holiday tradition for the entire family!