I will be singing with the Marin Symphony Chorus in the final Masterworks concert of the season on Sunday, April 24, 2016 and Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at the Marin Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael. Below are notes from the Symphony’s email announcement for the performances:
“The concert begins with a performance of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with our Marin Symphony Chorus. The piece is based on the Gregorian chant, “Mass for the Dead” and has become a beloved work of classical Christian service music. Spell-binding and meditative, the nine movements take the listener through the traditional requiem mass as perfected by Duruflé.
Georges Bizet’s comic opera, Carmen, has become one of the most popular works of all time. With “Habanera” from act 1 and the “Toreador Song” from act 2 making their way into popular culture over the last century. The symphony will perform excerpts from Carmen, Suites 1 and 2 to set the stage for our finale.
Our season ends with a performance of the iconic and ever-popular Boléro. This one-movement orchestral piece was composed as a ballet and premiered in 1928. Composer Maurice Ravel loved to restyle dance movements and while on vacation, he went to the piano and played a melody with one finger. He later told his friend, Gustave Samazeuilh, that he thought the theme had “an insistent quality.” He wasn’t kidding. He decided he would repeat that theme a number of times, without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra to its climactic finale.”