Concert Chauffeurs Audience Around the World in 80 Minutes
Musical Itinerary Includes Scotland, Finland, Austria, and More
For its opening concert of the 2022-2023 season, (its first full season in over two years) at the gorgeously renovated St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Orinda, the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, Geoffrey Gallegos, Music Director and Conductor, will offer attendees a captivating musical excursion around the world. Listeners will enjoy stunning sonic portraits of France, Scotland, Finland, Austria, Central Asia, and the United States.
But these masterpieces portray more than just scenery. For example, Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia powerfully illustrates the Finnish people’s painful struggle and unrelenting national pride under Russian tyranny at the turn of the 20th century. Beyond simply offering an enthralling musical excursion, this program pictures common human experiences that transcend time and place and unite us all.
This musical journey will also take listeners to The Hebrides islands off the coast of Scotland. Composer Felix Mendelssohn was so gripped by the islands’ rugged beauty that he immediately sketched a theme that would later become the famous overture entitled The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave).
Listeners will next visit Vienna, Austria where Johann Strauss II was commissioned to compose a waltz to lift the morale of the Austrian people after the devastating Seven Weeks’ War against Prussia. The result was On the Beautiful Blue Danube, known popularly as “The Blue Danube Waltz.”
In the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin paints a colorful picture of a caravan traveling across the desert escorted by Russian troops. Borodin cleverly intertwines two distinct ethnic themes as the caravan passes by and then fades off into the distance.
Other stops will include Paris, where a 22-year-old Mozart’s unsuccessful job hunt instead resulted in the larger-than-life Symphony No. 31 in D. Jean Sibelius’s stirring Finlandia will whisk listeners off to Finland, and Morton Gould’s American Salute will welcome them back to the US with creative variations on a familiar tune known as “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
The CCCO believes that everyone should experience the exhilaration, inspiration, and energy of a live orchestral performance. The CCCO offers relaxed and inclusive concert environments where attendees are welcome to wear anything and clap anytime.