TOPSHAM — The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of music director Rohan Smith, will perform its final concert of the 2011-12 season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Franco American Heritage Center in Lewiston and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Orion Performing Arts Center in Topsham.
John Ferrillo, principal oboe for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, will perform Mozart’s “Oboe Concerto in C Major.” The orchestra also will perform Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrushka” and Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide Overture.”
Ferrillo most recently played with the orchestra in 2008, when he performed the Strauss oboe concerto.
“He is a particularly gifted player who prior to his current tenure with the Boston Symphony played with the Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Symphony,” a release from the orchestra states. “He had been a featured guest soloist with numerous groups in the Northeast, including the Boston Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic.”
The release describes “Petrushka” as an “amazing ballet, brilliantly colorful, acerbic, and rhythmically riveting written for Stravinsky’s friend Nijinsky. The story told through the ballet is partly joyous and even sensual — in the Shrovetide Fair scenes or the ballerina’s seductive dance, for example — but also dark and troubling, and the music reflects the narrative, not the least of which is its use of what is now known at the Petrushka chord.
“Some of the tunes are reminiscent of Russian folk material, whether songs or dances, but everything is exaggerated, often to a point of grotesqueness. The overall effect is to make the idea of Old Russia exotically colorful, delicious chaos being part of the picture he’s painting.”
Bernstein’s overture to Candide “has stood firm as a popular favorite thanks to its sparkling orchestration and witty rhythmic play,” the release states. “The New York Philharmonic, which Bernstein led for many years, has, since Bernstein’s death, played the piece without a conductor as a tribute to him. The Midcoast Symphony, however, will be led by Rohan Smith.”
Tickets to both performances cost $17, with concert goers age 18 and younger admitted free. To purchase tickets, call 846-5378 or go online to www.midcoastsymphony.org.
Tickets also are available at the door, at Now You’re Cooking in Bath, The Gulf of Maine bookstore in Brunswick, and the Franco American Heritage Center in Lewiston.
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