DANA symphony Orchestra to offer Russian classics

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The 61-member Dana Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stephen L. Gage, will open its season with a concert titled “From Russia With Love” at 7 p.m. Thursday at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Admission is $6 ($5 for senior citizens and students from other schools; free for children under 12 and anyone with a valid Youngstown State University ID).

The concert’s theme emanates from the historical significance of “The Five,” or the “mighty handful,” a small group of Russian composers in the mid-19th century concerned with creating specifically Russian classical music. They are Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.

The concert will open with Glinka’s overture from his mid-19th century opera “Ruslan and Ludmilla,” and will follow with Borodin’s tone poem, “In The Steppes of Central Asia.”

The feature piece will be the classic Scheherazade, Op. 35 composed by Rimsky-Korsakov. The violin soloist for Scheherazade will be Caitlin Hedge, who performs frequently with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra. She serves as assistant concertmaster of the Greenville Symphony, and is also a member of the Butler County Symphony.

She is pursuing her master’s degree in violin performance at Youngstown State University and serves as concertmaster of the Dana Symphony Orchestra. She has a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Baldwin Wallace University.