Autumn Concert 2019:
20th CENTURY MUSICAL GIANTS – BERNSTEIN & STRAUSS
Sunday 5th May @ 2pm
The Springwood Theatre & Community Hub
Blue Mountains Orchestra celebrates the centenary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, and 70 years since the death of Richard Strauss in 1949.
The greatest legacy of both is in music for the voice – Strauss as the greatest composer of opera and song of the century, and Bernstein with his ground-breaking musicals with contemporary plots and themes.
We will hear a teenage work of Strauss, his beautiful Serenade for 13 Winds Op.7, and his very last work, his farewell to the world, Four Last Songs, written at the age of 84. Soloist will be soprano Samantha Cobcroft, who will also sing three exquisite lieder with orchestra, Die Nacht (The Night), Morgen (Tomorrow) and Zueignung (Dedication).
In 1957, Leonard Bernstein, already a world-renowned pianist and conductor, stunned the world with his revolutionary West Side Story, in which he and lyricist Stephen Sondheim adopted the concept of Jerome Robbins, transposing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to New York of the 1950s. Montagues and Capulets became Jets and Sharks, Romeo becomes All-American boy Tony, Juliet becomes Puerto-Rican immigrant Maria.
The tragic love story of racial divide is played out on the streets, alleyways and underpasses of New York City, with music both powerful, dramatic and lyrical, strongly influenced by jazz. Blue Mountains Orchestra will bring you highlights, with the help of the outstanding young singers from Blaxland High School.