The concert is at West Ottawa Performing Arts Center at Harbor Lights Middle School (formerly named West Ottawa High School), 136th at Riley, on Sunday, March 18 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available in advance at Holland Area Arts Council, 150 E. 8th St, through the website www.hollandsymphony.org, by phone with a credit card (616-494-0256), and at the door. Tickets are $17, $14 seniors, students through college are FREE. The major community sponsor for the concert is Johnson Controls. Additional sponsorship is provided by a grant from National Endowment for the Arts - Challenge America: Reaching Every Community.
Guest Conductor Robert (Gabe) Southard and the orchestra will begin the performance with colorful and exciting music from Nielsen's Aladdin Suite. Blaine Sims follows with the first movement of the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto. The audience gets to perform with the instruments made in the pre-concert activities in Sierra's Let's Make a Symphony in the "We've Got Rhythm"Â movement. Continuing the idea of orchestra games, Holland Symphony explores three short musical snapshots of Satie's Sports and Amusement creating musical pictures of golf, water slides and races. Gregory Smith has written music heard on major TV networks such as the ESPN college football theme, the theme to Market Week on CNBC, Star Trek, and Disney's "Pooh's Grand Adventure"Â. He wrote Orchestra Games to help children and adults learn to recognize the various instruments of the orchestra. Narrator and radio host Judith Wagley, will turn audience members into active participants. The final piece is Rossini's Finale to William Tell Overture which children of all ages recognize as the Lone Ranger theme.
Robert (Gabe) Southard has recently completed his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Conducting at Michigan State University and is active as a freelance conductor, flutist, and educator, having made many guest conductor appearances. Dr. Southard received his Masters of Music at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and was a classmate at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music of HSO Music Director, Morihiko Nakahara. He and his wife Sarah live in the Lansing area.
Blaine Sims, winner of the 2007 Norbert Mueller Concerto Competition, is an honor roll student in the 12th grade at West Ottawa Public Schools. She started playing cello at age ten and is currently a student of Richard Piippo, cello professor at Hope College. Blaine is principal cello of the West Ottawa Orchestra and the Holland Area Youth Orchestra. She is also a member of Kalamazoo Junior Symphony and string quartet. Blaine is on the girl's varsity tennis team and is student senate president. She plans to major in either cello performance or medicine in college. Her parents are Theadore and Deborah Sims.
Grand Rapids radio announcer and host, Judith Wagley, returns to our stage as narrator for the concert. The audience is invited to a reception following the concert to our guests and all the musicians. -- www.hollandsymphony.org
Posted March 15th, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
