The 65th season of Clinton Symphony Orchestra opens Saturday, September 22, 2018, with a pair of Guest Soloists and a side-by-side performance with a school orchestra. The 50 area musicians of the orchestra are conducted by Brian Dollinger, now beginning his 13th year at the helm.
The opening concert is at 7:30 p.m., in Centennial Auditorium at Sterling High School, 1608 4th Avenue, Sterling. A charter bus from Clinton, IA, through Fulton, and Morrison, IL, is available for concert-goers along Route 30, sponsored by Community State Bank. Bus reservations are required by calling 563-219-8084.
The music of Brahms is featured on the concert. Guest Soloists Julieta Mihai, violin, and Moisés Molina, cello, will perform the composer’s “Double Concerto,” accompanied by the orchestra. Mihai and Molina are music Faculty Members at Western Illinois University, in Macomb, IL. Their appearance is made possible by a grant from CGH Medical Center, Sterling, IL. In addition to their performance, they will visit school music classes and work with students in Sterling on Friday, September 21.
Saturday’s concert will open with a side-by-side performance with the Sterling High School Orchestra members. The students will sit in with the symphony musicians to perform two of Brahms’s 21 Hungarian Dances. They have been prepared for the occasion by their teacher and director, Erik Oberg.
Also on the program is Brahms’s Second Symphony, one of his most cheerful works, composed during a summer holiday on the shores of an Austrian lake.
Tickets for the concert will be available at the door, or in advance at Grummert’s Hardware in Sterling, Fitzgerald Pharmacy in Morrison, and Tegeler Music in Clinton. Adult admission is $20, and all students are admitted free of charge. In addition, any student attending with an adult may sponsor one adult for half-price admission.
“This concert demonstrates the Symphony’s continuing commitment to music education, and we want to encourage students and their families to hear this great music,” Robert Whipple, the Symphony’s Executive Director said. “Music educators realize that not all students will become lifetime performers. It’s as important to develop patrons of the arts.”
“It can be easy to forget that live music even exists, when we have endless choices of what to listen to at our fingertips, through the magic of the internet. Only in live performance can we hear the full spectrum of sound,” Whipple said.
Full information and William Driver’s notes on the music to be performed are on the Symphony’s website at www.clintonsymphony.org.