Nashua Chamber Orchestra Winter Concert, March 8 and 9!

Enjoy live music in the dead of winter! The NASHUA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, with musicdirector David Feltner, presents a spirited program of works by Mueller, Beethoven, Prokofiev andHaydn, featuring piano soloist Sang Woo Kang. Performances are Saturday, March 8th at 7:30, inthe Judd Gregg Hall at Nashua Community College, 505 Amherst St., and Sunday, March 9th at 3:00,in the Milford Town Hall, 1 Union Square on the Milford Oval. Tickets can be purchased at the door,or in advance at Darrell’s Music Hall in Nashua, and the Toadstool Bookstore in Lorden Plaza, Milford.Prices are $18 adult, $15 senior, and $8 student; children under 12, free. For more information,check the website, www.nco-music.org, or phone (603) 582-5211.! Max Mueller (1995--), an ambitious young composer from Cleveland, Ohio, completed hisundergraduate studies in Los Angeles, focusing on film scoring and helping to reconstruct older moviescores for modern films. In 2011, Max founded On the Verge, an organization that provides mentorsfor high school students to compose short pieces based on literary excerpts, culminating in a liveperformance. In his dual role as film composer and music educator, Max believes that film music isthe cultural intermediary for young people to develop a taste for classical music. His Fanfare is anappealing piece with interesting harmonies, orchestral textures and rhythmic variety. It is somewhatsuggestive of the music of Aaron Copland and John Williams. Originally written for string orchestraand piano, the composer expanded it to the full orchestra version heard on this program.! Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “prodigiously talented pianist with great technical virtuosityand interpretive gifts,” Sang Woo is a graduate of the Juilliard School, with a Doctor of Musical Artsfrom the Eastman School of Music. Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music atProvidence College, Mr. Woo balances his teaching career with performances and master classes inAsia, Europe, Central and South America, and the U.S.. Upcoming events include chamber, solo andorchestral concerts in New York, Providence, Chicago and Boston. He appears with the NCO in thePiano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Opus 19 (1798), by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770--1827). Beethovenperformed an early version of this Concerto in Vienna, in March, 1795, where it achieved immediateacclaim. Actually written before the C major concerto known as No. 1, No. 2 was revised byBeethoven and reissued three years later, in 1798. Although retaining much of the idiom of classicalstyle, it evinces the dynamic majesty of Beethoven’s unmistakable voice, ushering in a new era.! Sergei Prokofiev (1891--1953), an innovator easily recognizable by his trademark mischievoushumor, was viewed in his day as a musical prankster who mocked his traditional conservatoryeducation. He was already famous when he conducted the premiere of his first symphony in 1918.He called it the Classical Symphony, because it was, in his words, “as Haydn might have written it,had he lived in our day.” Employing the musical idiom and orchestration of an eighteenth centurysymphony, Prokofiev transformed its character and mood. This NCO program features the secondand third movements, Larghetto and Gavotte. The prim Larghetto has a tongue-in-cheek air with itscrisp pizzicato theme, abrupt key changes and dotted rhythms. Instead of the customary minuet,Prokofiev chose the gavotte of French Baroque dance suites for his third movement, again cloakingthe traditional form in contemporary stylistic nuances. The Classical Symphony has become one ofProkofiev’s most popular works, with old-world charm overlaid with contemporary style and wit.! The symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732--1809) are a treasure trove of musical delights, allrepresentative of a particular genre, yet each a unique gem, full of surprises. Foremost among themare the twelve London Symphonies (numbers 93--104), two sets of six each, written for his two highlysuccessful trips to London. The second set opens with Symphony No. 99 in E-flat Major, composedin 1793. Haydn directed its premiere in 1794, seated at the fortepiano. The Morning Chronicleproclaimed that “...the genius of Haydn, astonishingly inexhaustible and sublime, was the generaltheme.” Sparkling with spontaneous joy, vitality and humor, the interplay between groups ofinstruments is especially sublime, as is the poignant lyricism of the beautiful slow movement.