SAGINAW BAY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
2020 – 21 | Music That Moves You
Concert Schedule
2020 - 2021 Season
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TENTATIVE, SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Community Through Music
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Albinoni, Adagio for organ and strings in G minor
Grazyna Bacewicz, Concerto for string orchestra
Mozart, Symphony no. 40 in G minor
Our virtual concert opens with the well-known Adagio for organ and strings by Italian Baroque composer Albinoni. Then follows a vigorous Concerto for String Orchestra by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz, which she wrote in 1948, and the concert ends with one of Mozart’s best loved pieces for orchestra, his Symphony no. 40 in G minor.
Home For the Holidays
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
This year’s annual holiday pops concert includes Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride and our much loved holiday sing-along. There will be many other seasonal delights!
*The SBSO..Symphonie Fantastique
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Ruth Crawford Seeger, Andante for strings
Khachaturian, Violin concerto
Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger’s haunting Andante for strings from 1931 opens the program, and is followed by the brilliant Khachaturian violin concerto, with the SBSO’s own concertmaster Eliot Heaton as soloist. The evening is completed by a performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. This Romantic work was radical for its time. It tells the story of the dreams and hallucinations of a musician who obsesses about his beloved for whom he feels both longing and jealousy. He glimpses her at a ball, in the countryside, and as he is marched to his execution. Finally he sees her transformed into a witch as she joins in the witches’ whirlwind sabbath celebrations.
Featuring Special Guest Eliot Heaton
*A Life Remembered
Saturday, March 27, 2021
Jennifer Higdon, Fanfare ritmico
Fakhouri, Krupa
Mozart, Horn concerto no. 3, K. 447
Shostakovich, Symphony 5
American composer Jennifer Higdon’s percussive Fanfare Ritmico, which she calls a reflection on the speed of modern life, is followed by the premiere of Maestro Fakhouri’s Krupa, named for the pioneer American jazz drummer Gene Krupa. SBSO principal horn Bruce Bonnell is the soloist in Mozart’s delightful 3rd Horn Concerto, and Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5 completes the program. Shostakovich had been condemned by the Soviet government for what they considered inappropriate learnedness, so Shostakovich wrote his 5th symphony to rehabilitate himself. He did so brilliantly and also ironically.
*Cole Meets Gershwin
Saturday, May 15, 2021
Elena Kats-Chernin, Zoom and Zip
Gershwin, Piano Concerto in F
Beethoven, Symphony 5
Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin’s rhythmically driven work for strings, Zoom and Zip, is followed by George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Gershwin’s gift for melody in which he melded classical and jazz styles is fully in evidence here. The SBSO is delighted to welcome Bay City native and world-famous Gershwin expert Kevin Cole to the SBSO stage as piano soloist.
The evening ends with what is surely the most famous symphony of all time, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Memorable for the first four notes that permeate the whole work, for the journey from C minor to the triumphal ending in C major, and for the first ever use in a symphony of piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones, it gives an uplifting end to the 2020-2021 season.
Featuring Special Guest Kevin Cole
*These concerts are scheduled as live concerts. If social distancing restrictions are implemented, the concerts will be adapted to virtual concerts.
Snapshots
