SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Guest trumpeter returning to Youngstown

George Vosburgh is a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
A popular soloist will join the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Isaiah Jackson, for its Nov. 19 concert.
George Vosburgh, principal trumpeter with the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform the "Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major" by Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
"George has played with us before," said Patricia Syak, executive director of YSO. "He joined us for the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 of Bach when we did the series. He also created a brass ensemble in Pittsburgh, and has been the recipient of several awards for his recordings." Some of those awards include a Gold Record award for his work with Mannheim Steamroller and a "Best New Classical Artist" award in 1985 from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
The concerto was first performed at the court of Anton Esterhazy in 1804, written for his court trumpeter, Anton Weidinger. It was written for strings and a small group of winds. "Before the advent of public concert halls and orchestras, small orchestral groups performed for royal families in their chambers, hence the name chamber music," said Syak "The general public in towns and villages didn't have access to this music. There was much more music written to feature solo instruments such as the trumpet at this time than there was after concert halls became popular."
Other selections
Vosburgh will also perform the "Toy Symphony," written probably around the late 1700s, whose composer still remains a mystery. It is often attributed to Franz Joseph Haydn, known for his humorous and playful works, but further investigation suggests it may have been written by Haydn's younger brother, Michael, or perhaps Mozart's father, Leopold.
In any case, the legend says that when Joseph Haydn was in the employment of the Esterhazys, serving the family for most of his long life, beginning in 1761, he purchased some toy instruments that may have been used in this symphony.
In the YSO performance, small instruments such as toy drums and whistles will be "played" by local personalities: radio hosts A.C. McCullough, Kelly Stevens and Dan Rivers; state Rep. Sylvester Patton; and TV weatherman Frank Marzullo.
Felix Mendelssohn's "Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90," was begun while he was visiting Rome in 1831, hence its nickname the "Italian" Symphony. It was premiered with the London Philharmonic in 1833, conducted by the composer, and although he continued to revise it, it was the 1833 version that was ultimately published after his death.
Mendelssohn was born in 1809 into a family of wealthy Jewish bankers in Hamburg, who moved to Berlin and converted to Protestantism shortly after his birth. Known as a child prodigy, by age 12 he had already written numerous works. He spent his short life composing, traveling and performing, and died at age 39.
Maurice Ravel was known, along with Claude Debussy, as a French Impressionistic composer, whose music has that dreamy, lush and blurred quality associated with French Impressionism in art. Although, unlike Debussy, whose music was free-form, Ravel's music often did follow traditional form.
He wrote his first version of "Le Tombeau de Couperin" in the form of a dance suite for solo piano. It was written as a tribute to French Baroque music of the 1600s-1700s. "Tombeau" in French means tombstone, but Ravel ultimately completed the piece as a memorial to his mother and fallen comrades in the war.
For tickets or more information about the concert, call (330) 744-0264.