SouthWest Colorado Concerts will kick off its 2013-14 season and celebration of its 60th birthday with the San Juan Symphony, led by internationally acclaimed conductor and music director Arthur Post. This premier Cortez performance of the Durango-based symphony orchestra comes to Cortez on Sunday, Oct. 6, at 3 p.m., at the Montezuma-Cortez High School Auditorium.
The program, Musical Mavericks, includes The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. Beethoven originally dedicated his “Heroic” symphony to Napoleon, who he mistook for a revolutionary hero and defender of democracy. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven reportedly tore up the dedication page, but there’s an unmistakable revolution brewing in the music itself. A hundred and one years later another musical rebel, American composer Charles Ives, opened the door on new musical horizons with a piece he described as a “cosmic landscape.” Rounding out this program of powerful and mystical music is the beautiful Bruch concerto with brilliant violinist Odin Rathnam.
Post, music director of the San Juan Symphony in Durango and the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, Canada, has built a reputation for groundbreaking programming that combines the great classics with music reflecting local cultures and concerns. As a guest conductor in Europe, his appearances include the Helsinki Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony and the Singapore Symphony. In the U.S. he has led more than a dozen orchestras, including the Detroit, Houston, Grand Rapids and Richmond symphonies.
American violin soloist Odin Rathnam has established himself as one of the most passionate and versatile artists of his generation since his critically acclaimed Lincoln Center debut in 1993.
He is a veteran performer at many major European and American Festivals, including Denmark’s Tivoli Festival and Deia International Festival in Mallorca, Aspen and Caramoor.
He has performed as a soloist with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Columbian National Symphony, the Camden and Hayes Orchestras in England and the Central Pennsylvania Symphony, among others.
Three additional concerts round out the SouthWest Colorado Concerts 2013/2014 season.
Vocaldente, the award winning German a cappella male quintet, performs Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m.
Pianist Charlie Albright, winner of the prestigious 2010 Gilmore Young Artist Award and hailed by the Washington Post as being “among the most gifted musicians of his generation,” performs Monday, March 3, 2014, at 7 p.m..
The series closes with the Golden Dragon Acrobats, the 26 member world famous Chinese acrobats, on Saturday, May 3, at 7 p.m.
Tickets are available at the door on Oct. 6 starting at 2 p.m. Season tickets (for all four concerts) are $45/adult and $10/youth, 18 years old and under. Single concert tickets are also available for $20/adult and $5/youths.
Call Paul Bostrom at 565-9127 or Joyce Stevenson at 565-4757 for more information.