Press Room
SUU Music Department Presents the SUU Wind Symphony and Choral Concert
For Immediate Release: April 10, 2008
(Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah) The SUU Music Department presents the SUU Wind Symphony and Choral Concert as part of their Masterworks Series on Monday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Heritage Theater. The Concert will feature the SUU Wind Symphony and the SUU Concert Choir.
The SUU Wind Symphony, under the direction of Dr. Mark Stickney, will offer George Gershwin’s ever-popular Rhapsody in Blue, featuring SUU piano faculty member, Dr. Kirill Gliadkovsky. Rhapsody premiered on February 12, 1924 in New York City, with Gershwin as soloist. From the opening wail of the clarinet to the “da-da-da-daaah-daaah” theme, Rhapsody is quintessentially American in its vigor and fusion of diverse musical influences. Rhapsody was a huge hit at its premiere and continues to move and delight audiences today.
Dr. Gliadkovsky’s collaboration with the Wind Symphony provides a unique and inspiring opportunity for SUU music students. To work so closely with an artist of such high-caliber is certain to enhance their development as musicians.
Gliadkovsky joined the SUU Music Department as head of the piano department in August 2007. He was born in Moscow and attended the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. He has toured extensively on three continents performing piano and organ recitals and as a soloist with orchestras.
The SUU Concert Choir, under the direction of Dr. Grace St. Pierre, will present Missa Brevis in D, KV 194, by W.A. Mozart. Famous Mozart scholar, Alfred Einstein, wrote of the mass: "It is so intimate, the orchestral apparatus so modest, so lyric, that it has an almost private character, in which the distinction between sacred and secular vanishes."
The Concert Choir will join the Wind Symphony in Hector Berlioz’s fourth - and final symphony –Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale. This sweeping, exultant symphony will feature horn soloist Pete Akins.
Other featured works will be Shostakovich’s well-known Festive Overture, and the wistful and evocative Song of Lir, by Fergal Carroll.
The Heritage Theater is located at 105 North 100 East in Cedar City. Admission is $8 for general admission, $6 for SUU faculty and staff, $4 for students and children, and free for SUU students with a valid ID. For tickets please call 435-586-7878. Tickets are also available at the door. For more information please visit www.suu.edu/arts.