Tim Kenlan and Billie Jo Brito. Ray Libby photo
The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rohan Smith, concludes its 34th season with a concert titled “Cityscape, Seascape, Soundscape” that will be performed at the Franco Center in Lewiston at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 18, and at the Orion Performing Arts Center in Topsham at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 19.
The program at both concerts consists of three emotional pieces ranging from a bittersweet depiction of urban life to an ecstatic celebration of the beauty of nature’s rhythms. The concerts open with Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City” which features MSO orchestra members Tim Kenlan on trumpet and Billie Jo Brito playing the English horn. The second piece is Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” and the concert concludes with a return to one of Beethoven’s masterpieces, “Symphony No. 7,” which the MSO first played in 1994 and then again in 2014.
Complete concert and ticket information is available at midcoastsymphony.org. Individual tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. All concert tickets are free for students ages 18 and under, or for college students with ID. Audiences are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance online or by calling the box office at (207) 481-0790.
“Quiet City” was originally written by Aaron Copland for use in a stage play as a musical exploration of the complexities of urban life. Soloist Billie Jo Brito, an MSO member since 2005, expressed her excitement at this opportunity to have “a musical dream come true,” she said in news release. “Performing with MSO over the past 18 years has been an incredible experience. I look forward to all the music making in the future!”
La Mer is a lyric evocation of the voice of the sea which is the middle of Debussy’s three great orchestral trilogies. The grandiose Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 creates a musical dance through the rhythms and passions of nature as it weaves through melodic rhythms and catchy melodies.
In addition to playing these three pieces, the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra will also be offering enrichment events as part of its More with Midcoast series at each of the concerts. The Franco Center concert on the 23rd will feature pianist Michael Bostock, a Waynflete Senior, performing five pieces in the Heritage Hall on the ground floor of the venue during intermission of the concert. Before the Orion concert, audience members are invited to a pre-concert talk at 1:30 p.m. with Mary Hunter, professor of music emerita at Bowdoin College, and the two featured soloists, Tim Kenlan and Billie Jo Brito. This event is free and open to the public.
“Cityscape, Seascape, Soundscape” marks the conclusion of Music Director Rohan Smith’s 20th season behind the MSO’s podium.
“We have never done Debussy’s La Mer before,” Smith said. “This is one of the great masterpieces of the 20th Century and that is a big challenge. We are also returning to Beethoven’s 7. Any of the great Beethoven symphonies are pieces you go back to again and again to revisit and relearn and rediscover, and they never fail to be revealing.”
The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra is a community orchestra founded in 1990. Started as a chamber orchestra, there are now more than 80 members. The MSO performs a full range of orchestral literature from the classical to modern periods with four regular concerts each season at the Franco Center in Lewiston and the Orion Performing Arts Center in Topsham. A community-based organization, the orchestra draws players and audiences from south of Portland to Rockland along the coast, and inland from Augusta to the Lewiston-Auburn area. Its members all volunteer their time to practice and perform with the Midcoast Symphony.
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