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BSU Symphony Orchestra to hold spring concert
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The BSU Symphony Orchestra’s annual spring concert takes place on Sunday, March 12, in the Main Hall of the Morrison Center. The program includes music composed by Claude Debussy and Johannes Brahms.
Professor Craig Purdy, orchestra conductor and director of the University Orchestra Program, is also the one who put the concert program together. He describes the pieces as “blockbusters in our symphonic repertoire,” great music that has great appeal to listeners all over the world. They are audience favorites that also represent some of the best music written for orchestra during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“The Fanfare” from the ballet “La Peri,” composed by Paul Dukas, will be performed exclusively by brass instruments at the start of the concert. Dukas composed La Peri in 1912 shortly after his years of mandatory military service in the French Army. The next piece, Debussy’s “Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun” was first performed in Paris in 1894. The third and last piece performed this year’s Spring Concert is Brahms’ “Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73,” composed in the summer of 1877, and likewise considered a staple in the romantic repertoire for orchestras today.
The Spring Concert is the main season event for the orchestra, whose members have been practicing for this one concert since the semester started. They rehearse three times per week, Monday evening and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but members are expected to practice on their own for hours every day, in order to be well prepared for the orchestra rehearsals. Christina Wilson, a Senior Flute Performance Major, said she practices at least three to four hours early morning during the week, both for the orchestra and for the other ensembles she is a member of. Wilson is the flute soloist performing during Debussy’s “Afternoon of a Faun,” and was chosen to play the solos as she is the principal flute player of the orchestra. She was given that seat after the fall semester auditions, a process the orchestra and its members go through every year, when new students audition to be admitted into the orchestra, and current members re-audition for their seats.
The spring concert will be held at 7:30 p.m., in the main hall of the Morrison Center. Admission is $5 for the general public and free for Boise State students, faculty, and staff. Proceeds from the event go to the Music Department Scholarship Fund. Interested students can call 426-3980 for more information about the concert.
Kristina Lindahl
Special to the Arbiter
