MCC Kicks Off “World of Music” with Lowell Chamber Orchestra

Middlesex Community College will kick off the college’s Fall 2022 “A World of Music” concert series with a live performance by the Lowell Chamber Orchestra (LCO) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 24 at MCC’s Richard and Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center in Lowell.

“We are delighted to be offering a variety of live concerts this Fall, including standard and new orchestral and chamber music, Scottish folk music, and a silent film with music,” said Carmen Rodríguez-Peralta, MCC Chair of Music. “Everything is free and open to the public.”

MCC Music faculty member Orlando Cela will conduct the LCO through “Unexpected Designs,” a varied program of works from the Classical Era and today. The concert starts with “Paikuna Saqinku” – Quechua for “they are displaced,” according to Cela. Winner of the first ever LCO concerto competition Roy Karni will perform before the LCO’s “Cyprian’s Dance” performance by Eve De Castro-Robinson. The concert will end with Symphony No. 45 by Franz Joseph Hayden.

“The LCO presents a concert comprised of works that – in one way or another – offer something unusual,” Cela said. “‘Paikuna Saqinku’ is a work that uses Latin rhythms to tell the struggle of Columbian rural communities as they fight for the right of clean water. Karni will perform the famous Mozart clarinet concerto on the bassett clarinet, a rare instrument for which the concerto was originally written. ‘Cyprian’s Dance’ is a piece dedicated to Castro-Robinson’s son Cyprian and inspired by his love of grindcore punk music – unusual for an orchestra! The theatrical Symphony No. 45 is unusual in form and in the way it ends, a true lesson on political messaging.”

Other performances at MCC’s Academic Arts Center this semester include North Sea Gas at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5; Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Nosferatu at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 20; and Island of Peoples at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 17.

“A World of Music” will also feature performances at MCC’s Bedford Campus Concert Hall – A Peruvian Sojourn at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, November 8; Raley Beggs, Guitarist at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 20; and an MCC Student Recital at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, December 20.

MCC’s Academic Arts Center is located at 240 Central Street in Lowell. With parking not available on site, the nearest public parking facility is the Early Garage on 135 Middlesex St.