Musical Musings

“As always, it’s extremely difficult to talk about ‘highlights’ when there are so many of them in a very short space of time. But these concerts are a great guide as to what I think are the outstanding moments of this year’s Festival.”

“I chose these selections because they offer a variety of things that happen during SMF. Observing over the years what the most popular festival pass patron events, these highlights offer our new festival pass patrons a great sample of exciting and enriching options.”

Music is like a language all its own—and that language comes with its own special dictionary! Even the specific genre of movie music has generated unique terminology for the ways film scores pull audiences into the drama on-screen. When you add these terms to your music vocabulary, you’ll head to Sarasota Orchestra’s Hollywood Hits concert a newly-minted film music buff.

Have you ever gotten caught up in Bach’s deftly dancing counterpoint, the detailed texture in Mozart’s sonic tapestries, or the rich emotion in Beethoven’s convention-breaking harmonies, and wondered—how in the world did they come up with that?

Much of the world loves to paint Judy Garland as a tragic figure, a stage-and-screen supernova whose impetuous light burned so fiercely it was destined to suddenly gutter out. There are those who believe Garland and her appetite for life were her own undoing. Others blame her premature decline and fatal overdose (in 1969, at age 47) on decades of being eaten alive by an unforgiving industry. Thanks to journalist Herbert Kretzmer, we know Garland herself rejected the notion that she was born under a bad star.

Mozart’s Serenade in B-flat Major, better known by its subtitle Gran Partita, offers a glorious explosion of Classical-era Harmoniemusik for small wind ensembles, which buoyed up many 18th-century garden get-togethers and outdoor parties. Much about the Serenade in B-flat Major is a mystery (its exact year of composition, for instance, or whose scribbling on the manuscript lent the work its enduring nickname).

Concert-Goers react to “An Evening with Judy Garland: "It’s a dream come true.” ... “I closed my eyes and imagined I was at a Judy concert in the 1960s.” ... “You were there. It was just—real.” 

In a season that affirms Sarasota Orchestra’s vitality and upward trajectory, nine guest conductors will arrive at the podium for the 2019-20 Masterworks and Discover Beethoven concert series. Each conductor rides the wave of an illustrious career, and all are highly sought-after worldwide. What’s more, ten soloists who are electrifying today’s concert halls will share prodigious musical gifts in their interpretations of masterpieces from Mozart, Dvorak, Brahms, and beyond!

Violin virtuoso Viviane Hagner makes her debut with Sarasota Orchestra on this season's Masterworks 5 concert, with performances running January 31 to February 3. While Hagner is known for her dedication to new music, critics also laud her seemingly effortless renditions of monumental works for solo violin. Hagner provides two European ports-of-call on this concert's "Round Trip to Paris": Henri Vieuxtemps' Violin Concerto No. 5, and Camille Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for violin and orchestra, both widely regarded as virtuosic masterpieces.