The Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra will present its annual Symphony Sampler concert on Sunday, Sept. 16, providing an informative and free preview to the upcoming 2018-2019 symphony season.
The concert will provide a brief overview of the season ahead and introduce the various sections of the orchestra. Drawings for free tickets to the upcoming concerts will be held, and patrons will have the opportunity to purchase tickets to the upcoming symphony concerts. The Symphony Sampler concert is free and open to the public. It will take place in the Robert F. and Gertrude L. Shuck Music Recital Hall on the River Campus at 3 p.m.
The program will feature several musical selections from the repertoire planned for the 2018-2019 season, including brief excerpts from Dmitri Shostakovichs famous Fifth Symphony, and the opening of the last movement of Joseph Haydns London Symphony, No. 104. Also on the program will be music by two American composers, Howard Hanson and George Gershwin. The concert will open with the short, lively Symphony No. 1 by Haydn.
This program should be a fun and informative introduction to the Southeast Missouri Symphony, said Dr. Sara Edgerton, the conductor of the symphony. We will open the concert with Joseph Haydns Symphony No. 1. Haydn, a famous Classical composer, wrote over 100 symphonies and really helped to popularize that musical form. So, we thought it would be very fitting to open the Symphony Sampler concert with this lovely, early work by Haydn. We will also perform a short excerpt from Haydns Symphony 104, written many decades later, to show how the symphony developed and to also give the audience a preview of one of the pieces from our November concert. Additional musical excerpts and selections from the 2018-2019 concert season will be performed, to help round out this short concert. And, we will hold drawings for free tickets to all the upcoming symphony concerts for 2018-2019.
The program will also include a brief demonstration of the different sections of the orchestra to show how all the various instruments create the amazing range of sounds and expression found in the symphony orchestra.
This would be a great opportunity for families to introduce their children to the wonderful sounds of the symphony orchestra, Edgerton said. We certainly welcome everyone to join us for this informative, short, 45-minute concert to start off our new concert season!
For more information, please contact the Department of Music at (573) 651-2141.