AU Symphony Orchestra Christmas Concert

IMPORTANT DATE CHANGE!!

The concert is now on Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 8:00 pm.

Livestream Link: www.facebook.com/AndrewsUniversityMusic

A limited number of 50 FREE tickets will be made available to members of the Andrews University community (AU students, staff, or faculty) interested in attending the Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas Concert on Thursday, November 19. Those who attend will need to wear masks and physically distance while seated in the Howard Performing Arts Center’s balcony area (the main floor will be closed). You can pick up your ticket at the Howard Center office.

For those who are unable to join us in person but wish to experience our performance, the concert will also be live-streamed as a video on the Department of Music’s Facebook page.

The first half of the concert will feature graduate students Nehemias Calsin and Kristii Rasmussen conducting the AUSO in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No.29 in A Major. Although this composition has no official ties to Christmas, it evokes all of the charm, promise, and camaraderie typically felt during the Christmas season. Full of youthful zest, Mozart composed his 29th symphony when he was only 18-years-old and still living in his birthplace of Salzburg, Austria.

Following an intermission, the orchestra will continue with a sampling of orchestral Christmas music. To begin with, the orchestra will explore five selections from Peter Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Spanning different corners of the ballet’s music, these selections will offer great contrasts in drama and color. Following The Nutcracker, the AUSO will perform two beautiful arrangements of Christmas Carols that represent the stunning integration of jazz music theory with Romantic music that was common in 1940’s America, when both The Christmas Song and Winter Wonderland were composed. While our brass, strings, and winds musicians indulge in beautiful harmonies throughout them, the orchestra will also feature a lively rhythm section with drum set and plucked bass. To finish the evening, we will perform American composer Leroy Anderson’s brilliant orchestral medley of many Christmas Carols, titled A Christmas Festival, which he assembled in 1950.

Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Symphony No.29 in A Major

• Movements I & II (Nehemias Calsin, conductor)
• Movements III & IV (Kristii Rasmussen, conductor)

-Intermission-

Peter Tchaikovsky - Selections from The Nutcracker

• March of the Nutcracker
• Scene #8 (A Pine Forest in Winter)
• Tea (Chinese Dance)
• Trepak (Russian Dance)
• Waltz of the Flowers

Mel Tormé, arranged by Bob Lowden - The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

Felix Bernard, arranged by Calvin Custer - Winter Wonderland

Leroy Anderson - A Christmas Festival

Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Chris Wild

The Andrews University Symphony Orchestra is the core ensemble of the orchestral program at Andrews University. In addition to their current series at the Howard Performing Arts Center, the Symphony Orchestra travels within the Great Lakes region as well as internationally. Since 2006, the orchestra has performed in Italy, Austria, Germany, France, the Philippines and Costa Rica.