Facebook Fan Page!

Just a quick note that Steve Parulski (our Marketing Director at the NEPA Phil) just set up a fan page on Facebook for our orchestra and it will be updated regularly with concert info, photos, and other info about our orchestra.  Visit us and become a fan!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Northeastern-Pennsylvania-Philharmonic/54408510325?ref=mf

Reflections on Broadway, The Trumpet Shall Sound!

Well, we're more than halfway through a terrific season, and just had a very successful broadway tenors concert in February, just in time for Valentine's Day - it was practically sold out, both nights!  

So is broadway a great evening of music or what?  Well, we in the planning part of creating a season always reflect on that very question.  We don't want our programming to get too predictable, but we also know people seem to love broadway.  Now personally, I do like to conduct it, but I'm weary of programming too much of it - it's sort of our "go-to" genre within pops.  Just like on the classical side, pops programming can be so broad.  It can contain anything from Beatles to John Williams, to Rossini, to Broadway and everything in between.  A few years ago we skipped a broadway concert as a part of our 3 concert pops series, and I don't know if it was missed, but the last two years it's been a huge sell and we're banking on it again next season (has our season been released yet?  Maybe I shouldn't say anything yet -- shh!!).  But it always seems to entertain people and the repertoire is so rich and full of incredible songs from such an array of composers!  So we will continue to program it I'm sure, but what other things are you interested in hearing?  After all, it's really all about you, our audience!

Anyway, on to March and our upcoming Mozart in Paris concert!  I'm really excited to be working with George Vosburgh from the Pittsburgh Symphony - he's the PSO's Principal Trumpet and is one of the musicians in the PSO that I most admire.  I'm not sure if all of you know about my 'dual-citizenship' - serving simultaneously as the Music Director of the NEPA Phil and the Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  So I get to know musicians like George Vosburgh from week to week, working with him quite often.  But I don't often get the chance to work with him as a soloist.  Regarding the piece he will play with us (the Hummel Trumpet Concerto in E Major), he has edited his own orchestra parts for the performances.  They are marked with specific bowings and dynamics and sometimes altered rhythms, so we can save precious rehearsal time and do the piece exactly as he wants it done.  There's always a little negotiating between soloist and conductor, but I already know that I like his approach.  Don't miss this concert with one of the legends of the trumpet world!  He's amaaazing.

Mozart's 31st Symphony is a gem, not as often performed as some of the other mid-late Mozart Symphonies (he wrote 41 of them), and maybe it's because this symphony harkens back to a lighter style of Mozart's composing - it sounds like an early Mozart symphony but with bigger proportions and an expanded orchestration (including clarinets)!  And we'll be playing the famous 7th Symphony of Beethoven - one of his most popular (it's weird, but actually his most popular seem to be all of the odd-numbered 1-3-5-7 and 9).  It has a famous beautiful theme in the 2nd movement that is a series of variations on a simple and gorgeous theme.

We also hope you visit us in the beautiful Meadow Theater at Lackawanna College for the Scranton performance (Friday March 13).  We thought it might be nice to do this more "classical-leaning" concert in a smaller space like the Meadow Theater.  We'll be repeating the performance at the Kirby Center on Saturday the 14th.  See you there!