ORVALLIS - Two of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most popular masterpieces and a piece by French composer Jean Francaix will be presented at the season-opening concert by the Corvallis-OSU Chamber Orchestra on Sunday, Oct. 8.
The concert begins at 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Corvallis.
Featured soloists will be Annalisa Morton, oboe, and Marty Jennings, violin. Opening the program will Francaix's "Flower Clock" for oboe and chamber orchestra, with Morton as oboe soloist and Michael Curtis as guest conductor. The "Flower Clock" is a series of musical tableaux representing various flower blooms during the course of a 24-hour day.
Morton is instructor of oboe at Oregon State University and a founding member of the Arrieu Wind Quintet, which recently completed a three-week tour of the People's Republic of China, as part of a delegation officially representing OSU, the city of Corvallis and the state of Oregon. She is also principal oboe in the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra and recently was appointed to the English horn position in the Eugene Symphony Orchestra. She is a graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.
Jennings will be the featured soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto in A major, one of five concertos that Mozart composed as a 19-year old in the summer of 1775. In the words of musicologist Alfred Einstein, the A major concerto is "unsurpassed for brilliance, tenderness, and wit." It is frequently referred to as the "Turkish" Concerto due to an unexpected episode in the last movement that is a humorous, bustling dance in duple rhythm.
Until his appointment last May to a position in the Oregon Symphony, Jennings served as assistant concertmaster for both the Eugene Symphony Orchestra and the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra.
The concluding work on the program will be the 41st Symphony of Mozart, known as the "Jupiter"--- his last work in this genre. Experts say the "Jupiter" represents the pinnacle of Mozart's output of more than 600 works, and is one of the greatest compositional feats in music history.
As part of the concert, Michael Coolen of the OSU Department of Music, will deliver a short introductory lecture on the symphony during intermission. A formal outline of the work will be shown during the performance to help listeners better understand the elegant structure of this masterpiece.
Both Mozart works will be conducted by Marlan Carlson, holder of the OSU Endowed Chair for University Orchestras.
OSU Music Department, 541-737-4061
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