Brightmusic season features Maestro Joel Levine

Highlighting a season that will see several firsts, Maestro Joel Levine, Music Director and Conductor of the OKC Philharmonic, will make a special guest appearance in Concert 2 as conductor of a large Brightmusic ensemble. 

Concert 1: The season premiere on September 13, “Russian Revelations,” will feature a pair of trios by Russian composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. 

Concert 2: “Chamber Music Reconstructed,” on October 18, 2016 the Jeannette Sias Memorial Concert will feature works of Sibelius, Nielsen and Brahms, with Maestro Levine conducting a large ensemble of musicians. This is the first time Brightmusic will present an ensemble large enough to require a conductor. A reception in Maestro Levine’s honor immediately follows the concert. All are invited to the reception immediately following the concert to meet the Maestro and the Brightmusic musicians.

Concert 3: January 17, 2017 will feature “Lands Near and Far” including works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Béla Bartók and Oklahoma City’s own Edward Knight. 

Concert 4: March 7, 2017 presents “Romanticism Revisited,” illustrating the many facets of Romanticism with trios by Carl Maria von Weber and Sergei Rachmaninoff and a quartet by Richard Strauss. 

Concert 5: Crowning an ambitious season will be “Grand Night for Winds” on May 2, with two grand works of Dvořák and Mozart, and featuring another guest conductor, Professor Michael Haithcock, Director of University Bands and Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan in the largest Brightmusic ensemble to date. 

Thirteen musicians, approaching the scale of a small chamber orchestra, another Brightmusic first, will include the appearance of a pair of basset horns (rarely seen these days) in the Mozart Serenade, a work prominently featured in the movie Amadeus. Our guest conductor will be honored by a reception immediately following the concert. Enjoy some refreshments and meet Professor Haithcock and the Brightmusic musicians.

Concerts for the season are at St. Paul’s Cathedral in downtown Oklahoma City at 7:30 p.m.

June brings Brightmusic’s sixth annual Chamber Music Festival. Dates, venue, musicians and programs will be announced in January and will include our annual Mae Ruth Swanson Memorial Concert.

For more information, visit www.brightmusic.org.

Copyright 2016 The Gayly - 9/3/2016 @ 9:14 a.m. CDT.