Celebrating Candler Schaffer’s 15th season

sponsored by Lunn’s Colonial Funeral Home

Celebrations * Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Spiral * Sir Paul McCartney

Radiant Voices * Frank Ticheli

Violoncello Concerto in B minor, Op.4 * Dvorak

Julie Albers ~ Cellist, Guest Artist

Candler Schaffer and the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra celebrate a fresh, new season with jubilant, upbeat selections from Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Sir Paul McCartney and Frank Ticheli.  Celebrations lives up to its title, energetically passing light and lively themes around the orchestra like a child’s game of Hot Potato.  Less rollicking yet no less joyous, Spiral celebrates an orchestral soundscape with new age style, impressionistic and sweet, that Sgt. Pepper eagerly would have taught the band to play.  Ticheli, meanwhile, searched the urban landscape of Los Angeles’ 1992 riots “to compose a dramatic fantasy, powerful in expression, bright and optimistic in nature—a sounding of Radiant Voices amid the turmoil.”  Guest artist Julie Albers joins the WFSO for a concluding celebration of the cello with Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in B minor.  Dvorak’s friend and mentor Johannes Brahms praised this concerto, “Why on earth didn’t I know that one could write a cello concerto like this?  If I had only known, I would have written one long ago!”

“All-Orchestral” Oriental Delights

“All-Orchestral” Oriental Delights

Sponsored by Bryant Edwards Foundation

In the Steppes of Central Asia * Alexander Borodin

Butterfly Lovers’  Concerto * Chen Gang and He Zhanhao

Kristin Van Cleve, violin

The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Op. 8 * Charles T. Griffes

In the Mind’s Eye, for Four Horns and Orchestra * James Beckel

Commissioned Horn Quartet/Orchestra

Composed to celebrate the silver anniversary of the reign of Alexander II of Russia, In the Steppes of Central Asia depicts a caravan of Central Asians crossing the desert under the protection of Russian troops.  Ethnic melodies represent Russians, Asians and plodding hooves of horses and camels.  The Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto, an orchestral adaptation of an ancient legend written for western-style orchestra, features a solo violin playing Chinese melodies, chord structures and patterns adapted from opera and traditional Chinese folk songs.   Inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan, Op. 8, is considered to be Griffes’ finest orchestral work.  “I have given my imagination free rein in the description of this strange palace,” Griffes wrote, “as well as purely imaginative revelry which might have taken place there.”  Commissioned in part by WFSO, In the Mind’s Eye musically depicts various brush strokes in five paintings.  The first movement, Random Abstract, draws on contemporary artist Ingrid Calame’s tire tracks on cement as inspiration.  The second movement, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, explores the conflict and tension of the painting by Robert E. Weaver.  The final movement, Reflections, takes an aural journey through a trio of landscapes.

The Living Christmas Card

The Living Christmas Card

Sponsored by United Supermarkets

Have yourself a Dickens of a Christmas with the WFSO and The Living Christmas Card!  Both strolling carolers and Christmas cards emerged as yuletide traditions in the Victorian Age, and no one embodies the musical traditions of the era more warmly than this vocal ensemble, complete with authentic period attire.  The weather outside may be frightful, but inside Memorial Auditorium the music will be so delightful!

“Time For Three” string trio

The American Roots Series, Part III

Concert sponsored by Wells Fargo

Guest Artists sponsored Mark & Diane Prothro

Johnny Comes Marching Home * Roy Harris

Mississippi Suite * Ferde Grofé

Remembering Gatsby – Foxtrot for Orchestra * John Harbison

Fantasy on the Saints * Frank Proto

“Concerto 4-3” * Jennifer Higdon

Time For Three

The familiar and not so familiar frolic through the third offering of WFSO’s American Roots Series.  Composer Roy Harris explores a variety of textures in When Johnny Comes Marching Home.  Ferde Grofé’s baptism in jazz/pop music as pianist and arranger for Paul Whiteman sparkles through Mississippi Suite with impressions of the river, its folklore and the cultural colors along its banks.  Fantasy on the Saints spins When the Saints Go Marching In through one clever variation after another ranging from Middle Eastern to American Western and even a Friday Night Lights high school marching band.  Jennifer Higdon composed Concerto 4-3 to showcase guest artists Time for Three’s mix of classical chops with boot-tapping bluegrass fiddling.  This fiery fusion–sparked by violinists Zach de Pue and Nick Kendall backed by double-bassist Ranaan Meyer–may well prove that if you are going to play in Texas, you better have a fiddle, or three, in the band!

José Feghali, Pianist

sponsored by Air Tractor, Inc.

Lincoln Center Festival Overture * Walter Piston

Enigma Variations * Edward Elgar

Piano Concerto, in A minor, Op. 54 * Robert Schumann

Fourteen variations improvised on a single melody comprise the Enigma Variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar. Elgar dedicated the piece to “my friends pictured within”, each variation being a portrayal of one of his close acquaintances. Schumann’s wife Clara debuted Piano Concerto in A minor after Schumann had transformed his Phantasie for Piano and Orchestra into a full-fledged concerto. Schumann hesitated composing a concerto, for it seemed that the symphonic concerto after Beethoven was a finished form.  Hailed by Liszt as “the greatest music thinker since Beethoven”, Schumann’s effort gave composers a fresh start for future piano concertos.