OPENING NIGHT CONCERT & CHAMPAGNE GALA
WHEN: Saturday, November 7, 8 PM
WHERE: Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth Street, Red Bank
TICKETS: $35 for adults, $30 for seniors and only $5 for students. A donation of $75 or more will gain admission to the Gala Champagne reception and support the orchestra’s educational outreach efforts.
For tickets, call the Monmouth Symphony ticket line at 732-806-7680. To learn more about the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra and their programs, visit their website at www.monmouthsymphony.org.
The Monmouth Symphony opens its 67th season with a special evening concert featuring the glorious music of Strauss, Grieg, and Rachmaninoff and the beautiful voice of soprano Victoria Cannizzo, preceded by an Opening Night Champagne Gala.
For the first concert of the new season, Music Director Roy Gussman has selected a program designed to delight the audience. The concert will open with “Im Herbst” (“In Autumn”) by Edvard Grieg, a tone poem evoking the beautiful colors, crisp weather, and wonderful sights and sounds associated with this time of year.
Soprano Victoria Cannizzo, who has appeared twice before with the orchestra to great acclaim, returns to perform the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss. Written in the year before the composer’s death, these songs feature the beautiful soaring melodies for which Strauss is known, providing an excellent showcase for Ms. Cannizzo’s voice, described in the press as “complex” and “strikingly beautiful”.
Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, which will be performed by the MSO on the second half of the concert, was received with tremendous applause at its 1908 premiere. Filled with lush romanticism, it is evidence that Rachmaninoff had hit his stride as a composer, and it continues to elicit an enthusiastic response from today’s audiences.
In celebration of opening night, supporters and friends of the symphony are invited to gather in the Carlton Lounge at the Count Basie Theatre for an elegant champagne and hors d’oeuvres reception at 6 p.m. Then at 7:15 p.m., MSO bass trombonist and program annotator Tom Avakian will host a pre-concert interview with soloist Ms. Cannizzo on the stage of the Count Basie Theatre.
