Death Takes Center Stage in UK Orchestra's 'All Hallows Eve'
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 28, 2014) — The University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra (UKSO), under the direction of John Nardolillo, continues its 96th season with "All Hallows Eve" concert. The free public concert, featuring guest violinist and UK faculty member Daniel Mason, begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Concert Hall.
Mason will perform Alban Berg’s powerful Violin Concerto. The major 20th century work was written in response to the death of a young woman, a family friend of Berg's, and it was the last work he wrote before his own death. Mason is in his 32nd year as a professor of violin and head of the String Department at UK. He is concertmaster of and frequent soloist with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also, for 17 years, concertmaster of the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra. Mason has performed in Europe, Brazil, Korea, China and throughout the U.S.
Also on the program are "Tragic Overture" by Johannes Brahms and the great tone poem of Richard Strauss, "Death and Transfiguration," which describes the death of man, and the release of his soul into the infinite. The piece shows the man on his deathbed, where he remembers his childhood, his youth, his loves and life. He dies and receives the longed for transfiguration. Strauss wrote the work when he was just 24 years old. When Strauss himself was dying in 1949, at age 85, he told his family: "It's a funny thing, dying is just the way I composed it in 'Tod und Verklärung.'"
Since Nardolillo took the conductor's podium of the UKSO, it has enjoyed great success accumulating recording credits and sharing the stage with such acclaimed international artists as Itzhak Perlman, Lynn Harrell, Marvin Hamlisch, as well the Boston Pops. In addition to its own concerts, UKSO provides accompaniment for much of the UK Opera Theatre season. UK's orchestra is one of a very select group of university orchestras under contract with Naxos, the world's largest classical recording label. To see the UKSO season brochure, visit http://finearts.uky.edu/sites/default/files/14-15_UKSO_layout.pdf.
The UK School of Music at UK College of Fine Arts has garnered a national reputation for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, composition, and theory and music history.
MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu