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Eye on Utah Talent

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

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.

Concert

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.

Season Opener

Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center

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.

Anyone Out There?

Libby Gardner Concert Hall

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!

Amahl and the Night Visitors & A Christmas Carol

The Grand Theatre

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!

Gloria! A Baroque Holiday Concert

Libby Gardner Concert Hall

The Utah Voices choir joins us for a concert of Baroque masterpieces. Handel’s Coronation Anthem, Zadok the Priest and Vivaldi’s masterwork Gloria bookend the program. Also featured is Bach’s Orchestra Suite No. 3, containing the memorable Air, one of classical music’s most beloved tunes. Come celebrate the Glory of the Season with glorious music!

Tickets will not be available at the door. Please visit the Utah Voices website to purchase tickets online in advance.

Summer Arts Piano Concerto Night

Libby Gardner Concert Hall

New assistant Conductor, Brandon Horrocks will conduct this program of winners from the 2022-2023 Summer Arts Piano Competition. An important collaboration with the UofU School of Music, the SLS gladly offers our services every year to celebrate and support young Utah talent.

Welcome Spring

Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center

Just a few days early, we welcome the coming of spring with a program of joy and budding potential. Assistant conductor Brandon Horrocks will conduct William Grant Still’s Festive Overture to open the concert and announce the coming happy season. Still is an important American composer and considered the “Dean of Black Composers,” writing over 150 compositions, many premiering in major music centers. Perhaps nothing defines spring and the coming green quite like Ralph Vaughan Williams A Lark Ascending. Filled with English charm, the work depicts its title most effectively, transporting the audience to the English countryside. Local violin virtuoso Kasia Sokol-Borup joins us as soloist. The program will be conducted by longtime Utah musical leader, Barbara Scowcroft. Maestra Scowcroft has chosen Brahms' 4th Symphony as the perfect ending to our welcome to spring. Brahms’s final work is perhaps his most controlled example of musical seeds blooming into life as a complete symphony.

Tickets are available through ArtTix. Click here to purchase tickets.

Deep Imagination

Libby Gardner Concert Hall

Come explore the limitless musical imagination of composers with our varied April program. Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, an orchestral favorite, is like a time capsule, a reimagining of modern music into old forms. We will also take a journey into the fantastical realms of King Solomon’s mind in Bloch’s Schelomo (with SLS principal cellist, Andrew Clement) and the entire orchestra takes us on a wild ride with a famous trickster, Til Eulenspiegel!

$5.00 – $10.00

Family Outreach Concert: Tales from the Mist

Libby Gardner Concert Hall

We celebrate the diversity of composers and our audiences with our May Family concert. Tales from the Mist will take us into magical realms and even some real places, all composed by real people. It’s a story of US, the people that make up our human community. Appropriate for the whole family, this is a concert not to be missed! We wiltake a journey down the Moldau River in Smetana’s The Moldau (joined by some of Utah’s high school talent)

$5.00 – $10.00