Chas Sym Orchestra
CSO and Verdi Make the Rafters Ring
THE VERDI REQUIEM and I go way back. Like all the way back to the first time I heard it performed in Vienna in the 1960s, as a thunderstruck boy of 14. Since coming home to Charleston in the early 1990s, I’ve performed it (as a chorus member) twice with the Charleston Symphony under... Read »
Volodymyr Vynnytsky Leads Sottile Powerhouse
WHAT TURNED OUT to be a barn-burner concert of works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev on Friday night began benignly with Gabriel Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande Suite, Op. 80—a piece (or combination of pieces) with an unusual history of transmutations. Its origins lie in a score that Fauré wrote in 1898 for a play by... Read »
A Symphonic Circus at the Sottile
THE SOTTILE THEATER saw a different CSO crowd this past weekend. After all, people came to see the circus as much, if not more than, the symphony—and they got a delightful dose of both. Cirque de la Symphonie was co-founded in 2006 by Bill Allen and Russian native Alexander (Sasha) Streltsov, who is also... Read »
CSO Triumphant in Russian Masterworks Program
DISTINGUISHED GUEST CONDUCTOR JoAnn Falletta and young piano wonder Micah McLaurin conspired with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CSO) to conjure rare musical magic in Saturday evening’s repeat program of universally cherished masterpieces by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff at the sold-out Sottile Theatre. In two significant respects, the evening was also a memorable... Read »
Greenberg and Bekker Highlight Chamber Group
THE CHARLESTON CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, consisting of Charleston Symphony Orchestra members, performed with great passion and intensity to sold out houses on Friday, November 9, and Saturday, November 10. The much anticipated program consisted of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, followed by Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The Italian Vivaldi’s collection of... Read »
Masterworks Lead with Holst
THE FIRST MASTERWORKS CONCERT by the Charleston Symphony for this 2012-2013 season featured a sure fire blockbuster in Gustav Holst’s seven-movement suite for orchestra The Planets. The orchestra, which we weren’t sure was going to be around just a year or so ago, has emerged as a top-flight ensemble featuring guest conductors. Conductor Michael... Read »
CSO Concludes Season with Massive Mahler
THE CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA was impressive in its final concert of the season: the massively scored Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection” (1888-1894) by Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Tallying the names listed in the program, there were 102 orchestral members, the Symphony Chorus of 65, the College of Charleston Concert Choir numbering 42, plus two soloists... Read »
Thursday Night Chamber Music
HOPEFULLY not too many people will read this because the word might get out that Charleston Symphony Orchestra chamber music at the Library Society is a special treat. Musical hors d’oeuvres on a Thursday night… that’s what it felt like. For one thing, there is something special about classical music in a scholarly atmosphere,... Read »
An Unprecedented Evening with the CSO
HOW MANY OF YOU have heard a master violinist perform live in concert right here in Charleston on an instrument made by Antonio Stradivarius (1644-1737): the legendary north Italian craftsman who is almost universally regarded as the world’s finest-ever maker of violins? Actually, quite a few of Charleston’s music lovers have probably heard them... Read »
Premier of Edward Hart’s “Under an Indigo Sky”
Edward Hart’s “love letter to South Carolina”—his latest violin concerto formally entitled Under an Indigo Sky—will premier at the Gaillard Auditorium on Saturday, February 11, 2012. Charleston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Yuriy Bekker (for whom the piece was written) will be featured with the orchestra led by guest conductor Darko Butorac, the Music Director of... Read »
