MARIPOSA – The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra (MSO) belatedly kicks off its 17th season with a popular Mariposa tradition: the MSO’s annual Festive Holiday Concert on Saturday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. in the Fiester Auditorium of Mariposa County High School.
The MSO’s scheduled October opening concert of the new season had to be canceled due to MSO Founder/ Conductor Les Marsden’s emergency spinal surgeries in August and September and subsequent lengthy convalescence. Marsden’s surgeons have cleared him to resume some activities, including the MSO.
The December 15th Festive Holiday Concert will open with Ludwig van Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in A, opus 92. That composer’s 248th birthday will be celebrated the very next day – and the symphony itself had its world premiere exactly 205 years and one week before the MSO’s performance.
Considered one of Beethoven’s most upbeat, rhythmically-exciting works despite its second movement being one of his most soul-searching funeral marches, the 7th Symphony is frequently cited as the favorite of many professional musicians and aficionados. The composer included it among his personal favorites of his own works.
After the seasonal timeliness of the Beethoven, the MSO will also perform music frequently associated with New Year celebrations, including “The Waltz King” Johann Strauss II’s overture to the most famous operetta ever written: “Die Fledermaus,” Émile Waldteufel’s “Les Patineurs” (“The Skaters’ Waltz”) and the Waltz from the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
The concert will close with Marsden’s “Sierra Christmas Party” – just as every MSO concert has since the very first on Dec. 22, 2002.
Information including Marsden’s extensive program notes and composer bios/photos for each piece is available at http://tinyurl.com/MariposaSO.
Tickets for the MSO’s Festive Holiday Concert are priced at $10 for adults, $6 for students. Mariposa County Arts Council Members receive discounted prices at $8 adults, $5 students.
Tickets are now available for secure online purchase by visiting the Arts Council’s Shop page: http://tinyurl.com/MSOTickets. Tickets are also available in person at the Mariposa County Arts Council’s office and Treetop Gallery on the top floor of the Chocolate Soup store (5009 Highway 140) at the southern entrance to the town of Mariposa.
Call (209) 966-3155 for tickets and information.
The MSO is a program of the Mariposa County Arts Council, Inc.
