The Starkville/MSU Symphony Orchestra presents “Italian Ideals” March 21, its final concert of the 2014-2015 season. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Hall on the MSU campus. The concert features music written by Italian composers and a work inspired by Italy.
The program contains two of Gioacchino Rossini’s most beloved overtures, his overture to “La gazza ladra” (“The Thieving Magpie”) and his overture to William Tell. The Tell overture was made famous by a masked man with silver bullets, riding a white horse.
A concert of Italian music would not be complete without Italian Opera arias. Dr. Tara Warfield, soprano and assistant professor of music at Mississippi State, will sing two arias by Giacomo Puccini and Gaetano Donizetti — Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” from the opera “Gianni Schicchi,” and Donizetti’s “O mio Fernando’ from “La Favorita.” Dr. Duane Warfield, director of bands at Starkville Academy and trombonist in the SSO (as well as husband of the soloist), conducts the Donizetti aria.
Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” is also on Saturday’s program. The orchestra’s final piece will be “Capriccio Italien” by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. A significant contribution to the repertory is this fantasy based on Tchaikovsky’s travels to Rome. It includes street music, folk tunes, and opens with a bugle call he heard from an Italian cavalry regiment passing by his hotel.
All SSO concerts are free and open to the public.
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