The Beaufort Orchestra’s 2008-2009 Concert Season will open on Thursday, October 23rd and Sunday, October 26th at USCB’s Performing Arts Auditorium.
Musical Director, Frederick Devyatkin has chosen three of classical music’s most beloved concert works as the orchestra performs ‘Scandinavian Magic’.
Arthur Tollefson will be featured in Grieg’s ‘Piano Concerto in A Minor’ . Also included on the program are Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt Suite, No. 1’ and Finlandia by Jean Sibelius.
Tollefson is well known to area concert goers. He has appeared with the Beaufort Orchestra in Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and with Maestro Devyatkin in several mini-concerts on Dataw Island. Now retired from a career as an internationally acclaimed keyboard artist and educator, he makes his home on Callawassie Island.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) is Norway’s best known composer. It was his personal desire to create music which would reflect the magnificent natural surroundings of the country he loved. He received his formal training in Leipzig, Germany as a teenager and spent considerable time concertizing there and in other musical centers of Europe. However he returned for many summers to a small cabin near Bergen, Norway, which contained only his grand piano and a desk. While working in this one room, inspired by the close proximity of beautiful fjords and mountain glaciers, he wrote a huge number of large and small works. These immediately caught the favorable attention of Europe and his own countrymen. He found his particular voice infusing his music with Norwegian folk songs .
His ‘Piano Concerto in A Minor’ was written in 1868, when he was still a young man . It is, however, a mature work which brings to mind the associations with Norway that he strived to make part of his music. Today it is part of the standard repertoire of concert pianists throughout the world. The use of folk tunes and the drone-like sound of the hardanger fiddle are particularly evident in the third movement. Beloved by his countrymen during his lifetime, his music gained international acceptance as his fame grew.
In the 1870’s Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen asked Grieg to compose incidental music for Peer Gynt. Although Ibsen’s work is more likely to be read instead of performed on stage, Grieg ‘s orchestral Suites Nos. 1 and 2 remain favorites into the Twenty-first Century.
Suite No. 1 contains four movements, the most familiar being Morning and In The Hall of The Mountain King. The latter builds to a fantastic climax as Peer Gynt is chased by an army of angry trolls!
Travelers to Norway can visit the cabin and his home, Troldhaugen, (Hill of the Trolls), where Grieg lived with his wife for the last twenty years of his life. Perhaps you may even spot one of those legendary trolls under a nearby bridge!
Jean Sibelius’ ‘Finlandia’ is one of the most easily recognizable concert pieces imaginable. Most of us could probably hum the central melody on demand. While it was composed in 1889, Finnish words were not added until 1937. It was conceived as a work to invoke Finland’s deep national pride in becoming and remaining a sovereign nation! Finns share a border with Russia to the East and have long displayed a fierce spirit of independence.
We invite you to join Maestro Frederick Devyatkin and The Beaufort Orchestra as we begin our Twenty-Third Season with ‘Scandinavian Magic’. With your help we will be able to Keep the Music Live!!
IF YOU GO
Scandinavian Magic
USCB Performing Arts Auditorium
Thursday Evening, October 23, 8:00 P.M.
Sunday Matinee, October 26, 3:00 P.M.
Single Tickets -$30
Season Subscriptions Also Available
Youth through high school -$5
Tickets may be purchased on the Beaufort Orchestra’s website at
www.beaufortorchestra.org or by calling
Ticket Fusion’s toll free number
1-877-548-3237
