...you can hear the excellent St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, which just announced its 50th anniversary season. It's a humdinger, and will include a chamber orchestra festival in which SPCO will be joined by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Sinfonietta, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
The SPCO has commissioned some new pieces, by Maria Schneider, Steven Stucky, and Chen Yi; other new works by Heiner Goebbels and Peteris Vasks will be heard, as well as Thomas Ades's violin concert, Concentric Circles, a great piece.
Read about the season here (you'll have to dig a bit).
The SPCO is a jewel, and I'm embarrassed that I haven't attended more concerts. They play at venues all over the metro. I have started to attend and am now figuring out how many concerts I can afford for the next blowout season. I had to take some deep breaths when I saw the announcement (or maybe I was still recovering from having seen Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk perform as part of the Schubert Club series the previous evening . . .)
ReplyDeleteThe most concentrated programming will be in January 2009, during which four other orchestras, including COE and OAE will be playing with the SPCO. You could come in for a long weekend and here several concerts (look at the venue chart). So WHAT if it will probably be d@mn cold? The music will warm you up!!! Seriously.
(Jessica, I'm trying to find your novels here in the U.S. Looks as if I'll have to order internationally.)
Thanks for the comments on SPCO! I have never been to the Twin Cities, but I am sure I would like the area. I love water and know you have lots of it.
ReplyDeleteHow did you like Bell & Denk? They'll be the SF Bay Area soon.
I am, by the way, Lisa. You can find the excellent Jessica and her novels here. We use the same Blogger template, but not the same color scheme. ;-)
Whoops - sorry! I was surprised that a London-based blogger would be posting about the SPCO. I indeed mixed you up. This sort of brain malfunction is one of those 45th+ birthday presents they don't tell you about.
ReplyDeleteJoshua and Jeremy were AWESOME. I was almost as exhausted as Mr. Bell appeared to be at the end because it was such an involving concert. Huge standing ovation, which (I have noticed) given the age of Ordway crowds, doesn't always happen!! It was a great program mix as well (Tartini, Shostakovich, Dvorak, and Saint-Saens).
Heh, it's okay! It's curious that an Oakland, CA blogger is writing about the SPCO, too. I am on their press email list, so I get press releases. I like writing about events elsewhere, so...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the report on Bell & Denk - I will pass that along, because I have a friend who might be interested in going.
One more comment - if you come the last weekend in January ("you" being generic), you could also catch a MN Opera performance of "Faust" (www.mnopera.org).
ReplyDeleteI'm coming to SF in June myself for the Opera - hey! Music tourism!! I'm already scoping out other events on blogs.
I don't like Faust, alas. But get in touch when you visit SF - we can have lunch or coffee or something together. There's a link here someplace with my email address, or comment on the blog.
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