On the first of the year, everyone sets the bar quite high for creating new pathways via those pesky resolutions we all set for ourselves. But they don’t have to be seen as a chore.
In fact, I would guess that if you have been wanting to add a bit of a cultural kick up to your New Year, why not select the thrilling and perfectly timed Grand Rapids Symphony’s (GRS) concert this weekend?
Your local GRS welcomes to the podium the youthful Teddy Abrams, the music director of The Louisville Orchestra who will conduct an eclectic and, in many ways, a contemporary program of 20th century masterpieces that originate in three different countries but ring familiar to our modern times.
This weekend’s program is filled with powerful music created during a time period in our world when the upheaval of societal systems were drastically shifting, the world was warring with one another, and the arts were attempting to connect with their audiences as music composers sought to produce new works under hostile governments. (Dare I say that our world history is often a document of repeating cycles.)
The night’s clear stand out is Jean Sibelius’ “Symphony No. 2” -- a powerful and (still) very modern piece that will put any orchestra through a thrilling ride of an ambitious score. Sibelius is so beloved as an artist that in his homeland they have a national holiday named in his honor. The closest the U.S. has got to this is Easter, when a few folks quietly celebrate the creator of the Peeps.
Also performed this evening is Sergei Prokofiev’s “Violin Concerto No. 1,” which was created right before the turbulent years of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Rounding out the program, Abrams brings it back to our American soil with Samuel Barber’s “Medea’s Meditation” and “Dance of Vengeance” and Aaron Copland’s music used in the iconic Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”
A word of caution: when you get to the end of the thrilling Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, be sure to count the final six chords signaling the end. This ending has tricked many a concert-goer over the years who have been known to clap prematurely thinking it is over after the first of the final chords has been struck.
Admission: Tickets start at $18; students with a valid ID $5.
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