Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra to Perform Carmina Burana
with Minnesota Chorale, Minneapolis Youth Chorus
Three distinguished Twin Cities ensembles come together to excite audiences
MINNEAPOLIS, Febuary, 2010 –The Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director William Schrickel are pleased to announce its upcoming performance of Carl Orff’s iconic Carmina Burana.
The combined forces of the MSO, the Minnesota Chorale and its Minneapolis Youth Chorus will be led by Schrickel in Orff’s vibrant score, with soloists drawn from the Chorale. Also on the program are Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, conducted by Chorale artistic director Kathy Saltzman Romey, and Samuel Barber’s Second Essay for Orchestra, led by Schrickel as part of MSO’s centennial salute to the composer.
Sunday, March 14, 3:00 p.m.
Hopkins High School Performing Arts Center
2400 Lindbergh Drive
Minnetonka, MN 55305
Please note: All seating is general admission; seats are $18 for adults, $15 for Minnesota Public Radio members, $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are available through Ticketworks at 612-343-3390 or ticketworks.com.
Carmina Burana is Orff’s most popular piece and one of the indisputable hits of 20th-century music. Based on a collection of 13th-century poems found in an abbey in the composer’s native Bavaria, the work is an intoxicating song-symphony that dwells on the pleasures of life, the beauty of nature, and the fickleness of fortune.
Orff’s melodies are simple, his rhythms insistent, his colors vivid. The work begins and ends with the same unforgettable chorus, “O Fortuna.” Within this frame, Carmina has three parts. Primo vere (Spring) tells of a phenomenon familiar to Minnesotans: the earth’s reawakening after winter. In taberna (In the Tavern), shows us some of fortune’s victims, ending in a vigorous drinking song for men’s chorus. Cours d’amours (Court of Love), depicts love in its many moods and guises – rapture, yearning, disappointment, bitterness. Hypnotic and tumultuous, Carmina Burana is music that echoes in memory long after it has ended.
The MSO, the Minnesota Chorale and the Minneapolis Youth Chorus previously appeared together in 2008 on the Chorale’s annual Bridges program at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul. The Minneapolis Youth Chorus, which sings Carmina for the first time at this concert, is prepared by Patrice Arasim, its founding director.
For more information and directions to the performing venue, please visit www.msoa.net.
About William Schrickel and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
The Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra is celebrating William Schrickel’s 10th season as its Music Director. He was an Assistant Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra for the 2005-06 season and was the Music Director of the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra from 2002-2008.
The Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra is in its 28th season. Founded in 1982 by Saint Olaf College graduates, the orchestra has grown from a small chamber ensemble to a full symphony orchestra, a magnet for some of the area’s finest professional and amateur instrumentalists. The primary goal of the orchestra is to reach all corners of the metropolitan area with a full spectrum of orchestral music and to encourage audiences to experience the excitement of live symphonic performances. Visit www.msoa.net for more information.