September 24, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … A dark and stormy night and a lazy sunny afternoon will be musically depicted as the Oregon Symphony, and Assistant Conductor Mei-Ann Chen explores how composers reflect weather in music at “Storm Chasers,” the first Youth Concert of the season on Oct. 25 and 26 at 9:30 and 11 a.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and Thursday, Oct. 28 at 9:30 and 11 a.m. at Willamette University’s Smith Auditorium in Salem.
The concerts, designed for third through fifth graders, will feature violinist Andy Liang, a ninth grader at Alki Middle School in Vancouver, Wash. Liang performs with the Portland Youth Philharmonic and has won numerous competitions and honors, including the 2002 Young Artists and Schnitzer Concert Competition, as well as first place in the string category in the 2002 Vancouver Symphony Young Artist Competition. Liang will perform the third movement of Vivaldi’s “Summer” concerto from “The Four Seasons.”
Throughout the hour students will experience the drama of a thunderstorm, the beauty of the seasons unfolding, and the dreamy passage of clouds across the sky. Composers invoke our conceptions of these weather events through their music. Students will learn how they are connected to composers through their expression of a weather event they have experienced themselves. Through the music of Strauss’ “Thunder and Lightning Polka,” Respighi’s “Spring” from “Three Botticelli Pictures,” Debussy’s “Clouds” from his Nocturnes, Grofe’s “Cloudburst” from his “Grand Canyon Suite” and excerpts from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral,” students will experience some of the greatest musical weather in the classical repertoire, and have the opportunity to create their own musical weather event.
Oregon Symphony Youth Concerts are designed for elementary and middle school students throughout the state of Oregon and are attended by over 20,000 students each year. The Symphony presented its first “Music for Youth” Concerts in 1962 to junior and senior high school students in the Portland Public Schools. Youth Concerts are age-specific and support common curricular goals of the Oregon Content Standards in multiple subject areas. The Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement team works with area teachers, administrators and parents to develop concerts that provide students with quality experiences in the arts and that are relevant to their current learning skills and knowledge.
Tickets are $3/per student and the concert is free for students in the federal or reduced-lunch programs. For more information call 503-228-4294 or visit the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org
