RSS

Chequamegon Symphony Orchestra presents Music on the Water

November 30, 2011

The Chequamegon Symphony Orchestra will hold its second concert of the season, "Music on the Water," on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Alvord Theatre at Northland College. The event, another offering in the Northland College Community Connections series, is free and open to the public.

The program will feature four selections, including George Frideric Handel's "Water Music." Other selections to be performed include Jean Sibelius' "The Swan of Tuonela" and works by Johann Strauss Jr.

"There is an unimaginable abundance of music in diverse styles, places, and times that has been inspired by the ways we are drawn to water, from which stems all life on earth," says Joel Glickman, Music Director at Northland College. "It seems fitting that our orchestra, based by the shores of Lake Superior, should have as the theme for its second concert of the season: ‘Music on the Water.'"

The concert offers a wide range of musical influences drawn from nature, its character and relationships to water. The program opens with Handel's "Water Music," which Handel composed for King George I in 1717 to be played literally on the water in a barge cruising the Thames River. Written more than a century later, Jean Sibelius' "The Swan of Tuonela" is inspired by a legend derived from the Finnish folk epic, the "Kalevala." Sibelius' scoring and orchestration frames haunting melodic lines of the English horn, evoking both a scene of deep beauty and a tale of profound sadness. The concert concludes with two works by Johann Strauss Jr. The orchestra will perform Strauss' composition "On The Beautiful Blue Danube," a waltz that captures the essence of the Danube River and the liveliness of late 19th century Vienna. The final selection of the evening will be Strauss' "Donner un Blitz" (Thunder and Lightning), a quick polka that is a great musical rendition of a rainstorm.