Fans of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra should be excited to hear about their upcoming "Family Reunion" concert. The Orchestra, recently visited by Paula Leggett Chase and Steve Morgan for their Peppermint Pops concert, will welcome more esteemed guests for this show on Saturday, January 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Stewart Kershaw

            The 75th Anniversary of the EPO continues this season when current conductor and music director Alfred Salvia shares his duties with guest conductor (and former music director) Stewart Kershaw. Kershaw, who served the EPO in his capacities as conductor and music director from 1980-1988, will reunite with violinist Delmar Pettys (1977-1986), the EPO's concertmaster during the "Kershaw years." Current violinist Gared Crawford will take the spotlight in a performance of Dvorak's Romance for Violin & Orchestra. 

Stewart Kershaw

            Pettys isn't the only concertmaster to make a return during this concert. John Macfarlane (2003-2007), Michael Jinsoo Lim (1995-2000), and Brennan Sweet (1989-1994) will also be making appearances during the show. Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is set to be played during the show, with each of the former concertmasters taking one of the "seasons."  The Four Seasons, if you need to brush up on your classical music, is a set of four violin concertos composed in 1723 by Antonio Vivaldi, the Italian priest and virtuoso violinist. Each concerto possesses a varied texture in order to resemble its respective season. "Summer," for example, contains music which is meant to evoke a thunderstorm in its final movement. "Winter" features staccato notes on the high strings, which are supposed to bring to mind icy rains.

Brennan Sweet

            Other pieces being performed are the fifth movement of Brahms's Serenade in A, op. 16 (1859), On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring by Frederick Delius (composed in 1912), Galanta Dances by Kodaly (1933), and Rimski-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, composed in 1899-1900 for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan.

Delmar Pettys

            Flight of the Bumblebee is probably, alongside The Four Seasons, the classical piece most-likely recognized by casual listeners or non-fans alike. Within the context of the opera, it closes Act III, Tableau 1, where the magic Swan-Bird changes Prince Gvidon Saltanovich into an insect in order to visit his father. While there is a vocal part, most listeners will be familiar only with the orchestral arrangement, which by its nature makes it easy to extract as an orchestra concert piece.

            So how does a large scale event like the Family Reunion concert come about? Music Director and conductor of the EPO, Alfred Savia, explains:

            "As we started thinking about the 75th anniversary season, we actually formed a committee of some people with some history with the orchestra-former board members, musicians, that sort of thing. It was actually a former board president who suggested that, rather than bring in one big name violinist, wouldn't it be interesting to tie into the history with the orchestra to bring back a reunion concert of many of the past concertmasters."

Michael Lim

            Savia continues to explain that the idea has been in the works for about a year and a half, and the biggest issue was deciding who to invite and how long they'd need to have served in the EPO. All the returning concertmasters have served the EPO for at least three years.

            With Kershaw's return, Savia says, "Then I had the idea to expand upon that because Stewart Kershaw was my predecessor-to see if he were available, and he was, and was interested in the event-and he's the only other living music director of the orchestra. Then we decided to limit it to concertmasters who have either worked with him or me."

            Savia is excited about this upcoming show, and for good reasons. For people who share knowledge of EPO history, it'll be something of a trip backward in time once both Kershaw and Pettys take the stage. For those who aren't intimately familiar with the Orchestra, this concert will be a great opportunity to hear some of classical music's famous works as performed by very talented artists, each with a local connection.

http://www.news4uonline.com/features/evansville-philharmonic---a-family-reunion-without-all-the-awkwardness-1998.aspx