Chas Sym Orchestra
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 »
CSO Flourishes with Falletta
CONDUCTOR JOANN FALLETTA represents the best of what classical music is all about, and it rubs off—as it did Thursday night at the Gaillard Auditorium where she led the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in a lyrically rich program of Russian-European music. This may have been the best we have heard the CSO play, and much... Read »
CSO Chamber Orchestra Charms at Dock Street
YES, IT’s ABOUT THE MUSIC, but it is also about so much more. It’s about how the composers’ lives divine their works, how eight little notes yield endless variety, how precious listening promotes well being, and how fine music sets the tone for mingling—as it did for us in the Dock Street Theatre courtyard... Read »
Emanuel Ax Plays Lush Beethoven
THE CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA’s 76th year of Masterworks concerts opened Saturday, November 12, with two Romantic era works. Shuffling onto the stage of Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, Emanuel Ax, one of the world’s foremost keyboard giants, performed flawlessly Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73,” better known as the “Emperor,”... Read »
CSO Quartet Shines in Opening Church Series
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH in Charleston presented this year’s first in what has been a distinguished series of candlelight concerts, this time featuring a string quartet drawn from the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. The quality of music-making for a three-quarters full sanctuary remained on a high plane Thursday evening, October 27. The quartet comprised violinist Yuriy... Read »
An Undercurrent of Hope
THAT’S HOW GUEST PIANIST Robert Blocker described the third movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 which he performed last weekend at the Dock Street Theatre as part of a chamber music concert by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. As Dr. Blocker explained, Mozart’s favorite key to compose in was A major, largely due to... Read »
Celtic Fiddler & Friends Rock the Gaillard
MY MOST RECENT musical adventure came on Saturday, with the recently resurrected Charleston Symphony Orchestra’s absolutely smashing Pops Series concert at the Gaillard. A fair-sized and very enthusiastic crowd welcomed star Celtic fiddler Eileen Ivers (the New York Times has called her “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin”) and her crack backup combo, Immigrant... Read »
The Depth of the Slavic Soul
The CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ended this season’s Masterworks series last Thursday in Gaillard Auditorium with an energizing and emotionally uplifting “Slavic Soul” concert. Featuring Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104 (1895) and Russian Pytor Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36 (1876-77), the orchestra demonstrated how noble... Read »
The churches of Charleston
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