Punch Howarth The Feb. 15-16 concerts by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra will perform two divergent works of Ludwig van Beethoven and an unusual opus by Richard Strauss. Opening the concert will be a frivolous short work, Turkish March, featuring the Turkish instruments, triangle, cymbals, and bass drum. The Marcia alla Turca is one of ten selections…
Tag: SASO
Generals, September 2019
SASO 40th anniversary season
Punch Howarth Members of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra with conductor Linus Lerner, will celebrate 40 years of providing symphonic music and a home for instrumental musicians. Almost all of the new season’s musical selections have been performed by the orchestra during the previous 39 years. Some of the original founding musicians continue as orchestra…
September 2019
SASO prepares for upcoming season
Punch Howarth This article will be a preview of the new and lighter concert season of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra with Linus Lerner conducting four of the five concerts at SaddleBrooke and Oro Valley. Maestro Lerner was the impresario of the San Luis Opera Festival and his own International Voice Competition in Mexico…
December 2017
Greetings from SASO
Punch Howarth Looking back to the season’s first two concerts by SASO, both programs were musically superb. With two Russian concertos, a Beethoven symphony and exciting shorter works by Enescu, Dvorak and Rossini, the orchestra performed with great precision and expression. Adding to the enthusiasm was guest conductor Diego Sanchez Haase demonstrating his many…
July 2017
Summer “Music Musing”
Punch Howarth With SASO in recess until fall, I will relate my musical activities for the summer. In my own listening it has been mostly large works, which means big orchestra and lengthy. Starting with Shostakovich there is his Ninth Symphony followed by his greatest, the Tenth that freed him from Stalin’s shadow. Mahler’s Sixth…
June 2017
SASO retrospect and new season preview
Punch Howarth Musicians in the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra provided great musical experiences to mostly sold-out audiences last season. The closing concert was a season high with Melanie Chae’s reading of the Schumann Piano Concerto and Dvorak’s melodic Symphony No. 7. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 was S.R.O. Other gems were Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, Elgar’s Violin Concerto and Faure’s Requiem with…
March 2017
SASO to perform unusual works for saxophone
Punch Howarth Russian Romantic composer Alexander Glazunov’s, 1865-1936, last composition was a saxophone concerto, an instrument rarely used in a symphony orchestra. Only being invented in 1840 by Adolphe Sax, a clarinetist in Paris. Of nine varieties, soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones are most commonly used; made popular in the swing bands of the…
February 2017
SASO events
Punch Howarth Crown Imperial March by William Walton is a typical British processional/ceremonial march in the mode of Elgar whose Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 was performed on the January SASO concert. Walton was one of Britain’s better 20th Century composers and composed Crown Imperial for the coronation of King George VI in May 1937 and was revised…
October 2016
SASO sneak preview of 2016-2017 season
Punch Howarth Selections by great well-known composers will highlight the 2016-2017 season of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Linus Lerner. Works by Beethoven, Nielsen, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Schumann and Dvorak will thrill both audiences and orchestra members. In addition conductor Lerner has added a few esoteric and not as well-known works to challenge the…
August 2016
Classical music: a brief analysis
Punch Howarth A brief explanation of Classical is a necessary opening as there are music forms other than Classical; Pop music that changes with culture modifications, Jazz that stresses invention and individual expression, Folk music relating to culture groups are but a few among others. Some vocabulary relating to Classical are serious, old, complex, highbrow,…