With Conductor Chad Hutchinson and Graduate Conductor Ji Hyun Yim.
Program:
Overture to ‘The School for Scandal’- Samuel Barber (1931)
Symphony No. 1-‘Afro American’- William Grant Still (1930)
Symphonic Suite from ‘On the Waterfront’- Leonard Bernstein (1954)
News: Chad Hutchinson has won three awards from The American Prize.
1st Place– The American Prize in Opera Conducting for 2017-2018- ‘Suor Angelica’- Puccini, University of Minnesota Opera Theatre.
2nd Place– The American Prize in Orchestral Conducting for 2017-2018- Don Juan-Strauss, Piano Concerto No. 3- Beethoven, University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra.
2nd Place– The American Prize- Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming for 2017-2018- South Dakota Symphony Youth Orchestras.
The UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra opens the 2018-2019 season with a program of three influential American composers. This concert will highlight the juxtaposition of traditional classical music and pieces influenced by folk, jazz and the blues. Whether writing for a play, helping to influence culture or providing music for a movie, the works of Barber, Still and Bernstein expose the audience to a wide array of styles and bend genres.
The concert features many firsts. The overture to ‘The School for Scandal’ of Samuel Barber was the first piece that he composed for full orchestra. The Afro-American Symphony of William Grant Still, his first symphony, is widely regarded as the first large scale piece of symphonic repertoire composed by an African American and performed by a major symphony orchestra. The work integrates African American folk tunes and the blues into a symphonic form, something that was ground breaking in the early 20th century.
Lastly, we feature the first and only film music that Bernstein composed. “On the Waterfront,” an Oscar-winning film directed by Elia Kazan which starred Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint, shows Bernstein writing simultaneously for the symphonic hall and the big screen. This work will feature Professor of Saxophone Les Thimmig.
