Jackson Symphony Concert May 2, 2009

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra will finish up its 2008-2009 season in an optimistic mood with a program that’s full of spirit, joy and new beginnings. What’s the theme? “Spring,” of course ... the most hopeful of all seasons.

First on the program is Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, which patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned in 1942 for the celebrated American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. The ballet premiered two years later and was so well received that it soon became popular as an orchestral suite. Copland wrote the music for full orchestra in 1945 and received the Pulitzer Prize for Music that year.

Next on the program is Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Sergey Rachmaninoff’s fifth and last piano concerto. Besides being a talented composer, Rachmaninoff was a piano virtuoso and he played the solo part for the rhapsody’s premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore in 1934. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini has since become known as one of his best-known works. Guest pianist Christopher Taylor will perform the piano solo for the JSO.

The final selection on the JSO’s May 2 concert program is Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 - Spring, which he wrote in January 1841, several months after his marriage. His wife, an accomplished pianist who was nine years his junior, was the daughter of Friedrich Weick, his piano instructor. Weick tried to stop the marriage by waging a legal battle, but the couple finally married after a long wait. During the honeymoon period, Schumann was prolific and impassioned. He had not written a full symphonic work before his marriage - only compositions for piano and voice - but he said he was now motivated to write this symphony by the “Spring of love” he had for his new wife.

This concert is sponsored by Willis & Jurasek PC, CPAs/Consultants.
Tickets are $18, $27 and $32. For more information, please call the JSO office at 517-782-3221 – www.JacksonSymphony.org.

Official Website: http://www.JacksonSymphony.org