2011-2012

Side-by-Side: Thrill of a Lifetime

Saturday, February 25, 2012

7:30pm | Neel Performing Arts Center
Ticket Price: $10

The professional musicians of the Orchestra perform Side-by- Side with the Youth Philharmonic and student concerto winners.

New Music: There will be Strings

Saturday, March 24, 2012

7:30pm | Holley Hall
Ticket Prices: $12 - $20

Maestro Dirk Meyer and the Sarasota Orchestra take on the exciting and unique repertoire of three living composers. This one-night-only concert opens with American composer John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony, a rambunctious, high energy off-spring of one of his earlier works. The Los Angeles Times described the final movement of the piece as a “bucking-bronco blastoff, riveting and full of surprises.”  

Bursting next onto the program are two pieces for string orchestra that test the musicians’ capabilities in very different ways.  

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara displays breathtaking variety in his Bird Gardens. Written in honor of great Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, this piece describes the evolution of time. It grows from the stillness of eternity to the first initial movements and finally to the beating of time.  

The final work on the program is Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver. Best known as the lead guitarist for English alternative rock band Radiohead, Greenwood composed a sweeping work that has been described as avant-garde romanticism. The composition takes its name from the “super heterodyne” principle, the method that most modern radios and televisions use to receive their signal. From this theme, Popcorn portrays “white noise,” yet in a way that belies surprising complexity. Two excerpts from Popcorn were later worked into the soundtrack for the movie There Will Be Blood. 

Guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat, this is an evening of new music proving that living composers are ever expanding the classical repertoire with new voice and perspective.