Clinton Symphony Orchestra is ready to begin its 71st annual concert season. Conductor and Music Director Brian Dollinger has programmed music by master composers Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Mozart, as well as pieces by lesser known composers.
“We shouldn’t assume that they were the only ones composing great music during those times,” Dollinger said. “Each of them had contemporaries who were finding their own successes at the same time.”
The concert season opens on September 21, featuring Beethoven’s First Symphony, along with an opera overture from the same decade by French composer Etienne Nicolas Mehul and a Concerto Grosso for strings and piano by Ernest Bloch. Due to ongoing construction at Clinton High School, the concert will be performed at Clinton’s Zion Lutheran Church.
On November 2, the orchestra will play in the Centennial Auditorium at Sterling High School. For several seasons, Community State Bank has sponsored a bus from Clinton, through Fulton and Morrison to this concert. Information and reservations for the bus can be made by calling 563-503-4886. The concert program will include Beethoven’s Second Symphony, with an overture by Mendelssohn, and another by Basque composer Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga.
The annual Holiday Concert by the Symphony will also be moved to Zion Lutheran Church in Clinton. It will include some of the great music associated with the season and a holiday sing-along. The date is December 14.
The Symphony’s traditional “Music of Friendships” program of music for small ensembles will also be at Zion Lutheran Church on January 12.
The Family Concert on Sunday afternoon, February 23 will be at the Morrison High School Auditorium, and will feature Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – probably his best-known. The program will also include an overture by Anton Bruckner and a solo performance with the orchestra by an area high school musician, chosen from the annual Young Artist Auditions.
Anticipating the completion of the new Durgin Performing Arts Center at Clinton High School, plans have been made for the orchestra and Clinton’s RiverChor to perform Mozart’s final work, his Requiem.
Fund-raising and season ticket sales are in progress. Access to both can be made through the website at www.clintonsymphony.org, or my mail at PO Box 116, Clinton, IA 52732.
Clinton Symphony Orchestra is a 501(c)3 organization, and administered by a board of directors. The Executive Director is Robert Whipple.
