Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra Launches 2013-14 Season
Saturday, October 19, 2013
This season, Claflin Hill has dramatically reduced both Season Ticket and individual concert pricing for Senior citizens. “It was something we felt would be a nice gesture to our seniors,” stated Paul Surapine, Executive and Artistic Director of CHSO. “In this economy, our seniors – who live on fixed incomes – are the hardest hit. As they watch gas, grocery, and basic needs prices increase, they see no increase in the social security and/or retirement checks they must struggle to live on. As many of our audience are in that “senior” age bracket, we felt it was something we could do to enable them to still come out and enjoy the great concerts we know they appreciate.”
Season preview: Journeys
The 2013-14 Season, entitled "Journeys," comprises five Saturday evening performances in the beautiful and acoustically amazing Milford Town Hall Grand Ballroom, a Sunday Family Symphony matinee in March and a Special Event “Winter Pops Benefit Gala” concert in February at the Portuguese Club in Milford.
“As many of our symphony audience members know, we have always created concert programming that has an underlying thread or theme in each evening,” said Surapine. “This season, we wanted to create an entire year of concerts that are connected by a idea or concept – a year long “Journey” and exploration of culture. That “Journey” can be the inward and outward “reflective journey” that both audience and musicians make as they experience and share great musical works together, the “Journey” or path that great composers followed that brought them to that moment of creation of the art, and even a musical “geographic journey” as we spend an evening sampling music from a particular country or culture.”
Highlights of the “Journey” season include the November 2nd season opener in featuring an entire evening of Beethoven– whose Third Symphony ended the classical period and launched the musical world into the Romantic period, the Annual Holiday Pops concert featuring the New World Chorale, and an evening of music from the Czech Republic, including Antonin Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony.
In March, the orchestra, joined by the New World Chorale will present a premiere of a brand new, conceived, written and orchestrated by one of the orchestra’s long time violinists, Julia Okrusko, “Legends: Fantasy Violin.” Okrusko spent most of the winter of 2013 writing this work, and recorded it digitally in a recording studio. This will be the first ever live performance of the work, which is influenced by Tolkien and integrates classical, New Age and Celtic musical styles. “It is a monumental work, and one that is guaranteed to astound our audience,” said Surapine. “I listened to the recording for an entire weekend in August, and decided that we had to be the first orchestra to bring this amazing, inspiring and gorgeous work to life.”
The “Journey” season concludes in April, when the orchestra is joined again by The New World Chorale, for the Bach “Magnificat” and Gustav Mahler’s “Songs of the Earth” – his final work. This marks the first performance of Mahler by the CHSO.
Claflin Hill Alternatives Chamber Series
Claflin Hill will also continue the “Claflin Hill Alternatives Chamber Series” at the Singh Performance Center in Whitin Mill. The series is set to open on Friday evening, October 25, 2013. The series will includes three concerts through the coming season. All concerts begin at 7:30 PM.
The Season Opening Concert on October 25th, which features music of Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms, performed by CHSO Director Paul Surapine on Clarinet, Pianist Michelle Kelley and three of the CHSO cellists – Principal Johann Soults, Brent Selby and Luke Krafka – will be preceded by a wine and cheese reception hosted by Alternatives at 6:30. All concert goers are invited to attend the reception.
“Last year’s Inaugural Season of the Alternatives Chamber Series was extremely successful,” said Surapine. “We had increasingly larger audiences with each performance and strong support from the business community in terms of sponsorships of the series. We are looking forward to continuing and growing this series, which brings Claflin Hill world class performers to the Blackstone Valley region, introduces them to CHSO, and also the many present Claflin Hill audience members who come from Milford and it’s environs to experience the many cultural offerings at Alternatives.”
For this season, Surapine has programmed three innovative and energetic programs.
The first concert in October, entitled “Meet the CHSO Cello Section” presents three works for clarinet, piano and cello – each with a different member of the CHSO cello section joining Surapine and Kelley. “This shows the depth and talent of our orchestra – that within each section – so many of our musicians are capable of stepping out front and performing as a soloist or featured artist”
In January, Claflin Hill will partner with the newly formed Tamburlaine Theater Company to present Igor Stravinsky’s masterful “L’Histoire du Soldat” (A Soldiers Tale) – a multi-media performance work featuring narration, actors, musicians and minimal sets.
The Series concludes in April with French composer Olivier Messiaen’s monumental work – “Quartet for the End of Time” – which was written by Messiaen in late 1940 during his internment in a Nazi concentration camp. Messiaen wrote the work for himself on piano and three other inmates who happened to play clarinet, cello and violin. The work was premiered in the camp in January 1941, at the same time that the Nazi high command was meeting to put into process the Wannsee Protocol, now better known as the “Final Solution.” It is a deeply spiritual and poignant work that transcends religious or political beliefs and evokes Messiaen’s emotions as he came to grips with what might have possibly been the end of his time and the end of time eternal.
Ticket prices are $19 per concert, $50 season ticket and can be purchased online through the Claflin Hill website.
The Alternatives Singh Performance Center is at 50 Douglas Road, Whitinsville, and is handicapped accessible.
More information
To request a season brochure, call Claflin Hill at 508-478-5924 or view the season on-line at www.claflinhill.org.
All individual concert ticket purchases may be done on-line through the orchestra’s secure website. For those who do not have access to the internet, call the CHSO office at 508-478-5924.
All Saturday evening performances begin at 7:30 PM and the Sunday matinee performance in March begins at 3 PM. Tickets are available online through the Claflin Hill Website, www.claflinhill.org. Season Ticket orders must be made by calling the Claflin Hill Symphony office at 508-478-5924. Season Tickets are priced at $150, which includes the entire 5 concert Saturday subscription series. All Claflin Hill performance venues are handicapped accessible.
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