Thursday, October 29, 2015
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
WARREN
Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Susan Davenny Wyner, will present a season-opening Halloween concert Sunday, featuring singers Marian Vogel and Eric Bower, plus the Westminster College Concert Choir.
The concert will begin at 3 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church, 2627 Atlantic St. NE. For tickets, call 330-399-3606 or go to warrenphilharmonic.org.
The program for the concert, dubbed “Stories, Dances, Tricks and Treats,” will include Smetana’s “Dance of the Comedians” from “The Bartered Bride”; de Falla’s “The Three Cornered Hat, Suite No. 1”; Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” from “Prince Igor”; Anderson’s “The Syncopated Clock” and a take on Pharrell Williams’ pop hit “Happy.”
Also on the bill are Bach’s “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” Cantata 191, and Rutter’s “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Wyner said the concert will celebrate the high spirits of Halloween and the glories of All Saints Day.
“The orchestra wears musical magician hats – transforming from circus performers in ‘Dance of the Comedians’ to fandango dancers in ‘Three Cornered Hat’ to exotic warriors and maidens in ‘Polovtsian Dances,’ to a little alarm clock gone slightly bonkers, to a peek at Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy,’” she said.
Vogel, a soprano, and Bower, a tenor, and the Westminster choir will join the orchestra for the climax of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” followed by the grand finale of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Wyner selected each piece for its ability to take audiences on a journey of the mind.
“What excites me particularly is how quickly these composers take us into fascinating emotional and imaginative places,” she said. “None of the pieces is long, but each creates such a complete world, filled with rhythms, colors and surprises, that we are swept away. How the strings, harp, trumpets, flutes, horns – 100 musicians with 60 different instruments – are transformed into such varieties of beauty truly seems like magic.”
The WPO will announce the winners of its Art in Music contest for Trumbull County students at Sunday’s concert.
The students created art about the orchestra’s music and its instruments to enter the contest. The winning entries will be displayed at OH WOW! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology in downtown Youngstown.
The orchestra also will perform excerpts from the concert in two performances Friday morning at Lakeview High School in Cortland for Trumbull County grade-school students. Principals, teachers and parents can contact Leanna Dunaway, the orchestra’s assistant executive director, for information about the concert or the contest at 330-399-3606 or warren.philharmonic@gmail.com.