Kensington Symphony Orchestra Presents: Bridge to Romanticism, Saturday, October 25 @ 8p.m.

Venue: Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington, CA
Date: Sat October 25, 2014 @ 8:00pm
City: Kensington, CA
Email: info@kensingtonsymphony.org
Price Range: $20/15 General/Students & Seniors; Children under 12 Free
Tickets: (415) 794-1269

For its first concert of the 2014-’15 season, the KSO will present a program entitled Bridge to Romanticism. Music Director & Conductor Geoffrey Gallegos has chosen Beethoven’s monumental Third Symphony (“Eroica”) as the central work on this program, arguably the most influential musical “bridge” to the Romantic period in expression, character, inspiration, form and scope. Originally dedicated to Bonaparte, Beethoven famously and violently scratched out the dedication on the title page of the score with a knife upon learning that Napolean had himself crowned Emperor. His future feelings remained ambivalent towards the great military strategist and dictator as evidenced by his final published title as “a heroic symphony…..composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”

Jason Chiu, a recent graduate of and competition finalist at the SF Conservatory of Music and El Cerrito resident, will be our brilliant young soloist in the Chopin Second Piano Concerto, the epitome of the early 19th century romanticism. The program will open with the overture to Die Freischütz (The Freeshooter or Marksmen), considered by many the first important German romantic opera by Beethoven contemporary and fellow countryman Carl Maria von Weber, and highly influential on the future late romantic work of the young Richard Wagner.

Don’t miss this evening of great early romantic music fervor!