Posted on Facebook 6/18

Hello, Mpls, Plymouth, Winona & Hudson! Just a few days until your “Symphony for the Cities” outdoor concert! Welcome the mighty MN Orchestra to your town.

Mon, 6/29, 7:30, Lake Harriet Bandshell, Minneapolis
Wed, 7/1, 8:30, Hilde Performance Center, Plymouth
Thu, 7/2, 8:00, Lake Park, Winona
Mon, 7/6, 7:30, Lakefront Park, Hudson

Meet Roderick Cox, who assumed the Orchestra’s assistant conductor position this month.  Hear Shostakovich, Bizet, Sousa, Williams, Beethoven & Heitzeg plus, of course, The Star Spangled Banner and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Details here:  http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/560/-/symphony-for-the-cities#.VYLWPPlViko

What a great opportunity to introduce your family, friends and neighbors to our wonderful Orchestra. We hope to see you there!

Special THANKS to our friend Emily Hogstad (“Song of the Lark” blog), who offered to design entertaining memes for at least some of the summer concerts. Watch our Facebook page for more of them in the weeks ahead!

Posted on Facebook 6/8

"…perhaps the first symphony written while its composer was high."

We asked our friend Emily Hogstad (“Song of the Lark” blog) to give us her thoughts about the upcoming “Inside the Classics” concert on June 13.  Here’s what Emily wrote:

“At their first Inside the Classics concert of the 2015 season, conductor Sarah Hicks and violist-host Sam Bergman teased their June repertoire as perhaps ‘the first symphony written while its composer was high.’ On Saturday the thirteenth, in a program called Fairy Tales from the Dark Side, they and the Minnesota Orchestra examine the ‘Symphonie fantastique,’ Hector Berlioz's strange and brilliant depiction of his opium-inspired obsession with actress Harriet Smithson. The first half of the concert will be a discussion heavy on insight, intellect, and irony as Sam and Sarah discuss Berlioz and his music. The second half will feature a spellbinding performance of this early romantic - programamatic! - masterwork. Leonard Bernstein once coolly observed: "Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral." Maybe he's right, but I can promise you this particular trip won't be a bad one!”

You won’t want to miss this one! Tickets ($29) and more info here:  http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/456/-/inside-the-classics-fairy-tales-from-the-dark-side#.VWudKc9Viko

Posted on Facebook 6/4

Sarah Hicks! We love watching her conduct (often with leading-edge technology and always in those 5-inch stilettos!), and if you’ve ever been to an “Inside the Classics” or “Live at Orchestra Hall” concert, we’re sure that you do too. 

But did you know that severe tendinitis sidelined her piano studies as a teenager (she was on track to become a professional pianist), and her father suggested that she take up the baton.  She studied composition and conducting and Harvard and Curtis, went on to found the Hawaii Summer Symphony, made her way to the MN Orchestra in 2009 to replace Doc Severinsen (who retired as conductor of our Pops concerts), and has since also conducted the LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops and others.  

Read more about Sarah in this terrific interview conducted by WOSU Radio (central Ohio):   http://radio.wosu.org/post/i-overcame-my-own-obstacles-meet-conductor-sarah-hicks

Meet Sarah at the Friends of the MN Orchestra’s “Accent” event at 5:30 pm on Thursday, June 11:   http://www.friendsofminnesotaorchestra.org/event/accent-lifelong-learning-6/  Tickets are $25 and include wine, light supper, program and conversation around music.

Then don’t miss the “Inside the Classics” concert on Saturday, June 13, where Sarah conducts Berlioz’ “Symphonie fantastique.” At 8:00 pm she and violist Sam Bergman examine and discuss this unusual composition, and then after intermission the Orchestra performs it. Tickets ($29) and more info here:  http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/456/-/inside-the-classics-fairy-tales-from-the-dark-side#.VWudKc9Viko

Posted on Facebook 5/31

Saturday, June 13. “Symphonie fantastique,” a string quartet, UCLA Game Bar, Tron Human Foosball. Make an evening of it!

What are we talking about? Well, it’s just the confluence of an “Inside the Classics” concert by the MN Orchestra and events in/adjacent Orchestra Hall for the Northern Spark Festival!

First, the always-entertaining and always-informative conductor Sarah Hicks and violist Sam Bergman will guide us through the strange world of Berlioz’ “Symphonie fantastique” at 8:00 pm, after which the MN Orchestra will perform the piece under Sarah’s direction.  We’ll post more about this concert over the next few days, but meanwhile you can find more info and tickets ($29) here: 
http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/456/-/inside-the-classics-fairy-tales-from-the-dark-side#.VWudKc9Viko

The all-night (free!) Northern Spark Festival runs from 9:00 pm to 5:26 am.  As part of the Festival, the UCLA Game Lab will transform Target Atrium into a Game Bar.  Although it doesn’t open to the public until 9:00, ticket holders for the Inside the Classics concert will be permitted into the Atrium from 7:00 to 8:00 to play!  More info here:  
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/ucla-game-lab-popup-arcade

Another Northern Spark event is a 10:15 pm performance at Orchestra Hall of “From Amber Frozen” by Mason Bates, performed by a string quartet from the Orchestra (Cecilia Belcher, violin, James Garlick, violin, Sam Bergman, viola, and Pitnarry Shin, cello).  Click here to learn more about this composition and performance:  
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/from-amber-frozen

Out on Peavey Plaza you can participate in “Tron Human Foosball.”  Click here to see a photo and more info – it looks like even the non-athlete can enjoy it!  
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/tron-human-foosball

So plan now to take a nap during the day and then stay up all night, starting with Berlioz and ending with a 5:30 am pancake feed at Aria!  
Pancake info here:  http://2015.northernspark.org/project/pancake-feed
More Festival info here: http://northernspark.org/

(Digital photo by Ingrid Dance)

Posted on Facebook 5/31

The all-night (free!) Northern Spark Festival runs from 9:00 pm on Saturday, June 13 to 5:26 am.   One Northern Spark event is a 10:15 pm performance at Orchestra Hall of “From Amber Frozen” by Mason Bates, performed by a string quartet from the Orchestra (Cecilia Belcher, violin, James Garlick, violin, Sam Bergman, viola, and Pitnarry Shin, cello).  Click here to learn more about this composition and performance:
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/from-amber-frozen

Also, the UCLA Game Lab will transform Target Atrium into a Game Bar.  More info here:  
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/ucla-game-lab-popup-arcade

Out on Peavey Plaza you can participate in “Tron Human Foosball.”  Click here to see a photo and more info – it looks like even the non-athlete can enjoy it!  
http://2015.northernspark.org/project/tron-human-foosball

So plan now to take a nap during the day and then stay up all night, starting with Berlioz:
http://www.saveoursymphonymn.org/june-2015/june-13-inside-the-classics

and ending with a 5:30 am pancake feed at Aria!  
Pancake info here:  http://2015.northernspark.org/project/pancake-feed
More Festival info here: http://northernspark.org/

Posted on Facebook 6/5

 “…the light that was all around us now fills us, lifting us into a moment of calm and understanding.” This is how Scott Chamberlain described the final moments of Sibelius’ 6th Symphony in the preview he published yesterday. You will want to read the rest of his insights into this amazingly beautiful and “anti-modern” symphony before you attend the concert tonight or tomorrow (or listen via MPR’s broadcast or live webstream tonight). 

And Scott unpacks for us some of the intricate complexities of Sibelius’ manipulation of time and patterns of motion in his one-movement 7th Symphony.  But he also talks about the joy of just listening to it: “While the Sixth is serene and luminous, the Seventh is bold and heroic. It is a titanic struggle, played out over majestic themes that rise and fall in wonderful tension with each other that doesn’t slacken until the final note.”

Read Scott’s essay here:  https://maskoftheflowerprince.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/sibeliuss-sixth-and-seventh-symphonies-a-preview/

Mahler’s epic 1st Symphony is also on the program tonight and tomorrow, all of this under the direction of maestro Osmo Vänskä. Wow! What a way to end the season!

Find info about tonight’s broadcast here:  http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/minnesota_orchestra/

Click here or call 612.371.5656 to see if any tickets are still available:  http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/395/-/season-finale-sibelius-and-mahler#.VXIe2M9Viko

Posted on Facebook 6/3

Want to help broaden the audiences for classical concerts? TURNBACK your unneeded tickets! 

There is always a queue of students and others at the box office on concert nights who need discounted “rush” tickets in order to experience our MN Orchestra. They might be first-timers, they might be on a limited budget. But in any case, if the concert is sold out they need your help to get in!

All of this weekend’s performances are close to sold out, so if you have tickets you can’t use, please go to the Orchestra’s website or call the box office at 612.371.5656 to turn back those tickets.  You can exchange them for a future concert or “bank” them for a future exchange or turn them over to the “sponsor a student” program or receive a tax deduction – it’s up to you.  

Here’s the easy-to-use webpage for turning back your tickets:  https://boxoffice.minnesotaorchestra.org/cart/forms/change.aspx

Let’s get EVERYONE in the audience!

Posted on Facebook 5/31

“Vänskä conducts Sibelius better than any conductor alive” said the headline when Osmo conducted the London Symphony Orchestra last November.  Read it here:   http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/06/lpo-osmo-vanska-review-sibelius-lemminkainen

Then experience both his brilliant conducting and our Orchestra’s spectacular playing this Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening in the season finale concerts.

Thursday night it’s Sibelius’ Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7 in a one-hour “Symphony in 60” concert. Only a handful of seats are still available.   http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/460/-/symphony-in-60-sibelius-symphonies-nos-6-7#.VWsLuc9Viko

Friday and Saturday nights hear Sibelius 6 & 7 plus Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, “Titan.” Only two handfuls of seats are available for those concerts!  http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/395/-/season-finale-sibelius-and-mahler#.VWsMeM9Vikq

If you have tickets that you cannot use, please turn them back so that someone else can snatch them up!  It’s easy to do here:  https://boxoffice.minnesotaorchestra.org/cart/forms/change.aspx

If you have tickets for Friday night, come a little early and join Sibelius expert Paivi King in the Atrium at 7:15pm for a pre-concert lecture, "The Love Story of Jean and Aino Sibelius." This community conversation is part of the Sibelius 150 international celebration this year.

Wow! What a fabulous finale to a breathtaking season! We hope to see you at Orchestra Hall this weekend.