On Sunday, March 23, I attended a concert by the Starkville/MSU Orchestra. Now, in its fifty-sixth season, the concert was held on the MSU campus, at Lee Hall, directed by Dr. Andrew Stevens, who led nearly 60 instrumentalists on the stage. Madam Mayor Lynn Spruill sponsored this concert.
Dimitri Shostakovich’s “Suite for Variety Orchestra” opened. This delightful work, in eight movements, featured saxophones, unusual in an orchestral score. Also unusual was prominent use of the xylophone.
Next, two student competition winners joined the Orchestra. Holden Grant delivered Chaminade’s “Concerto for Flute and Orchestra” flawlessly. Bass-baritone Willian di Silva sang Colline’s farewell aria to his overcoat(!) from Puccini’s “La Boheme.” Then he gave the audience a rousing rendition of Escamillo’s Toreador Song, from Bizet’s “Carmen.”
Sacred music concluded the concert. John Rutter’s “Gloria,” sung in Latin, featured a chorus of nearly eighty, culled from the Starkville Community Chorus and the MSU Singers. This big, boisterous version contrasted vividly from Antonio Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” a standard from the Baroque Era.
The Symphony’s fifty-sixth season concludes Friday, May 23, at Lee Hall. They are poised to perform a patriotic “pops” concert.
John N. Botes
Columbus
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