This orchestral concert is a program full of adventure!

Opening with Sibelius’s most known work, Finlandia, this work is often described as the song that helped to define Finland’s national identity and unite the Scandinavian nation in its struggle for independence from Russia.

Commissioned by the Seattle Symphony in 2022, that orchestra’s website invites you to “Take Ellen Reid’s TODAY AND […] piece, which, in the words of the composer, “evokes a sense of the present and also of ‘foreverness’ that feels constraining, yet expansive. ‘Today and today’ was how I experienced a lot of the last year.” Reid dramatizes the possibility of passing through disorientation to euphoria; she uses glissandi “stretched through the whole string section to create a sense of groundlessness,” and a motif develops “to propel you further into a joyful place.”

The symphonic poem Má Vlast [The Moldau] by Bohemian composer Smetana is world known as one of the greatest musical depictions of the vast and ever moving river that begins its life in the mountains of Bohemia and winds its way through the countryside growing ever-stronger until it ends in the beautiful city of Prague.

The world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s Fractal Isles occurred in January 2023 under the baton of Maestro Abrams with the Louisville Orchestra and will have its West-coast premiere on the Britt hill in June. A work that embraces the sounds of nature and uses instruments and soundscapes to depict the sounds all around us, it will be a beautiful complement to our outdoor pavilion, where the sounds of nature exist in harmony with our music.

There is no better depiction of the tendency in the early 1900’s for French composers to be fascinated by Spain than Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnol – at once fluid and harmonically rich, listeners will be transported to the elegant and fascinating world abroad.