Punch Howarth The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra season ended on May 7 and 8 with one of their most ambitious programs that included Brahms, Samuel Barber and Berlioz. Each of these works has intrinsic difficulties that gave the orchestra no small challenge. Also, with these concerts this writer of SASO articles retired as principal timpanist…
Tag: SASO
May 2016
Southern Arizona Symphony season finale
Punch Howarth Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz will be the major work by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in their season ending concert. Not really a symphony in the traditional mode, the five-movement work is a series of opium induced musical dream depictions. Along with Beethoven’s five movement Symphony No. 6, the Pastorale, depicting musical sounds…
March 2016
April concerts by the Southern Arizona Symphony
Punch Howarth In thinking about writing this article describing the April concert by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, my first thought was that it will be esoteric, but no; is it too abstract? And again, no; what it is, is a surprisingly unique concert. Director Linus Lerner has selected works for strings and soloist, a…
February 2016
SASO third concert includes Gould-Rachmaninoff-Dvorak
Punch Howarth Linus Lerner will return to lead the third program of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra’s concert season. Opening the program will be Morton Gould’s WW II patriotic American Salute of 1943, based upon When Johnny Comes Marching Home, an Americana folk song dating to the Civil War in the 1860s. Composed in one…
January 2016
SASO plays Rachmaninoff’s “Resurrection” second piano concert
Punch Howarth SaddleBrooke’s Sheryll McManus will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor(m), that this writer labels his “resurrection,” with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra with Linus Lerner returning to the podium. The reason for my descriptive label is that following a disastrous failure at the premier of his First Symphony, Rachmaninoff…
August 2015
Music and ballet—harmony in motion
Punch Howarth This article will be summer essay number five on Forms of Music and is one where I need to tread lightly—Ballet Music. There is much ballet music from romantic and modern composers that I am familiar with, but to attempt to explain ballet (the dancing) itself, I would pirouette-tutu easily and miss being…
June 2015
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra 2015-2016 concert preview
Punch Howarth SASO will offer an interesting, diverse series of concerts in the 2015-2016 season starting in October. There will be five programs performed at SaddleBrooke and in Oro Valley. Also the orchestra returns to Green Valley for two programs. Resident conductor Linus Lerner will be on the podium for four of the programs with…
May 2015
SASO season finale is a humdinger
Punch Howarth Linus Lerner leading the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in this season’s final concert promises to be a great conclusion to an outstanding season. Three generations of composers are featured that includes the Russian Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain who died in 1881; German Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G who died in 1920; Englishman…
April 2015
SASO SaddleBrooke concert April 11
Punch Howarth A concert of 20th Century works are featured in the April concert of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra. Opening the program will be Psalm 22, a new work by Michael Kiefer who is principal trumpet in SASO. Hong-Mei Xiao will be featured soloist in Bohuslav Martinu’s Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra of 1952. Following…
March 2015
SASO concert
Punch Howarth Linus Lerner will conduct the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in three differing and interesting compositions in the April concert, plus a bonus. In addition to Psalm 22 by Michael Kiefer, Martinu’s Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, featuring soloist Hong-Mai Xiao, and Masquerade Suite by Khachaturian, will be the winner of the annual Student Concerto Competition…