Events

Conductors
Robert Baldwin, Anton Armstrong

• Kodály Dances of Galanta
• Bloch Sacred Service Solo: Christopher Clayton, baritone

Conductors
Robert Baldwin

• Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
• Villa-Lobos Aria from Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 Arr: Krance
• Mendelssohn Symphony #5 "Reformation"

Join us on September 27th as the SLS and Maestro Baldwin celebrate the start of his tenth season by conducting one of his favorite symphonies, the monumental Symphony No. 10 by Dmitri Shostakovich. This work will highlight and challenge every section of the orchestra with its technical and emotional demands. Audience members often remark after hearing it that the work is one of their new favorite pieces. It is a work filled with every aspect of the human condition, reflecting the struggle and triumph of the individual—something we all can relate to. To contrast, we will open with the ebullient Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein. Join the party! Don’t miss this event that will highlight one of the finest community orchestras in the Western U.S.!

For November, we present two orchestral favorites and also feature one of our players as a soloist. Long an audience favorite, Dvo?ák's Eighth Symphony brims with memorable melodies and thrilling climaxes. Beethoven's Overture to Coriolanus is an orchestral showcase, filled with drama and power. Our principal bassoonist, Ryan van Liere, also takes center stage as soloist for John Williams' The Five Sacred Trees, a unique work that highlights the solo bassoon as well as the colors of the orchestra.

There's holiday magic in the air for our December concert. Come see emerging talent dance the first act of Tchaikovsky's beloved Nutcracker. We are pleased to welcome dancers from the University of Utah's Department of Ballet to present this famous tale. The first act represents the very best of story, action, and magic. The SLS will also share holiday favorites that are guaranteed to put you in the holiday mood. Two performances. Come for the matinee and stay for the second show!

January's Family Concert has long been a favorite with Salt Lake families. This year music director/conductor Robert Baldwin, special guest Sterling Poulson, and the Salt Lake Symphony have cooked up more fun for all ages. The orchestra will perform a variety of music, including the Flying Theme from E.T., Bach’s Little Fugue in G minor, The Remarkable Farkle McBride with Sterling Poulson narrating, selections from Frozen, and some audience improvisation to Adophe’s Tawoop. Perfect for all ages, this year's concert will look into the building blocks of music, how it is put together, and why we love to listen. And every audience member gets a debut with the symphony. Audience participation is essential! What you do with your career afterwards is totally up to you!

The winners of the SummerArts Piano Concerto Competition take center stage with Salt Lake Symphony conducted by Resident Conductor and U of U DMA alum, Jong-hun Bae. These gifted young people will play concerto movements by Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Grieg, and Liszt.

Take a pinch of the Arctic Circle, an epic journey in Antarctica, and throw in a fiery Russian legend. What do you get? The recipe for Fire and Ice, our exciting March 21st program. We will be joined on the stage by talented high school student to play Sibelius’ most enduring work, the tone poem Finlandia. Long considered the unofficial national anthem of Finland, the work brims with dark energy and soaring melody, indicative of the nordic country and its inhabitants. The music gets more colorful for Stravinsky’s first ballet, The Firebird. The 1919 Suite presents the major themes and events of the ballet in a cohesive, four-movement work. The cast of characters comes alive, from princesses to princes, evil sorcerers and the Firebird herself. After intermission, we journey south-—far south-—to the South Pole. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 7 (Sinfonia Antarctica) is based on material written for a 1948 film which depicts Robert Scott’s ill-fated attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. Vaughan Williams effectively used the symphony orchestra to depict the landscape, which ranges from bleak to awe-inspiring, as well as the feelings experienced by the members of the expedition. Added voices of Emily Nelson, soprano, and a 16-voice chorus of female voices, will add to the symphonic chills in store for the entire audience. So bundle up and light a fire with YOUR neighbors and friends, the Salt Lake Symphony!

Utah Talent Abounds! Our April 25^th concert features home-grown talent like no other concert this year! We are pleased to welcome back to the podium Barbara Scowcroft, conductor of the Utah Youth Symphony and violinist with the Utah Symphony. Barbara is a favorite local personality, known for her insightful interpretations and gift of communication for musicians and audiences alike. We will open the concert with a performance of Utah composer John Costa’s Vignette, a work originally commissioned by Barbara Scowcroft and the Utah Youth Symphony to celebrate the Salt Lake Winter Olympics in 2002. Also featured will be Shenae Anderson, the winner of the Utah Division of the Stradivarius International Violin Competition. She will join the orchestra to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Long considered one of the quintessential concertos by any composer, this work sparkles with energy and clarity. The evening ends in sunny Italy with Mendelssohn’s ebullient Symphony No. 4 (Italian). Here the local talent of the Salt Lake Symphony musicians will shine as bright as the Italian sun in summer!

What do you get when you ask the most prolific composer in the Classical era to compose music for an anonymous libretto about the creation of the world? Haydn’s Creation (Die Schöpfung). The libretto was first given to the great Baroque composer, Händel, but it was not seriously attempted until Haydn’s commission in 1797. The result is a monumental creation in and of itself, taking texts from the Book of Genesis, Psalms and Milton’s Paradise Lost. We join forces with the Utah Voices and Dr. Michael Huff for a memorable evening of music, story and ultimately, inspiration. The story will be told in music and words, sung in English, and will feature the vocal talents of Melissa Heath, soprano; Robert Breault, tenor; and Christopher Clayton, bass-baritone as soloists.

Conductors
Robert Baldwin

Earthly realities, heavenly music. No better way to kick off four decades of music making in Salt Lake City! The 40^th Season opens with one of the most beloved works by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. Compiled from incidental music for the Ibsen play of the same title, Grieg’s compilation contains four movements that have long been audience favorites, including the deeply moving Åse’s Death and the slightly scary In the Hall of a Mountain King. We will follow this familiar music with something no one has heard before—a world premiere! Phillip Bimstein’s The Brahma Viharas was written especially for Charlotte Bell, our SLS English horn player. It is a work celebrating and describing the four Buddhist virtues of Loving Kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity using the solo English horn and the colors of a modern orchestra. Since we are on the topic of life and death, we thought it appropriate to close the concert with Richard Strauss’s great tone Poem, Death and Transfiguration, a testament to the late Romantic philosophy. Depicting a dying artist, thoughts of life pass through the orchestra as memories: his childhood innocence, the struggles of his manhood, the attainment of his worldly goals; and at the end, the longed-for transfiguration from the infinite reaches of heaven. It’s an orchestral thrill ride worthy of the life it depicts.