February 9, 2025 3:30PM
MLK Jr. Performing Arts Center
Romeo and Juliet
Benjamin Rous, conductor
These concerts are sponsored by the Vesta Lee Gordon Fund at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation
HAUGE Morning Overture (2024)
UVA Concerto Competition Winner – Jack Siegel, bass-baritone
PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet – Excerpts from Suites 1 & 2 (1936)
Due to a death in his family, Charlottesville Symphony Music Director Benjamin Rous is unable to conduct this weekend’s performances. His replacement is long-time colleague Eric Garcia, Music Director of the Boise Philharmonic and Conductor of the McCall MusicFest (ID). Garcia previously served as Assistant Conductor of the Seattle Symphony where he led subscription, education, pops and community concerts.
Noting his decision to celebrate the orchestra’s milestone season with the inclusion of a well-known, major symphonic work on each of the five 2024-25 Masterworks programs, Music Director Benjamin Rous anchors the February performances with excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet music for Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare’s 1597 tragedy of the same name has been an endless source of inspiration across the arts, from literature to ballet, opera, film and musical theater, and Prokofiev’s vivid portrayal of the star-crossed lovers makes it one of the greatest 20th century ballet scores.
Kristin Hauge’s “Morning Overture” opens the concert. Hauge is a PhD candidate in the Composition & Computer Technologies program within the University of Virginia’s Music Department. “Morning Overture” traces the unfolding of the morning from dawn until noon: the sun rises, birds flit and animals awaken.
Continuing the focus on UVA musicians, Fourth-Year student and bass-baritone Jack Siegel joins the orchestra in three popular opera arias. He is the winner of UVA’s second annual Concerto Competition which seeks to highlight the talents of student musicians in the university’s Music Department. Siegel will sing “La vendetta” from The Marriage of Figaro, “Vecchia zimarra senti” from La Bohème and “The Toreador Song” – “Votre toast” – from Carmen.
The orchestra’s February concerts are underwritten in part by the Vesta Lee Gordon Fund at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. Major season support has also been provided by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.
In-depth program notes by Program Annotator Laurie Shulman are posted on the orchestra’s website, www.cvillesymphony.org, two weeks prior to each Masterworks concert.
[Photo by Jen Fariello]
Tickets for this event are currently unavailable.