Mid-Atlantic Symphony to perform in Lewes April 23
The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra will conclude its 2021-22 season with a performance at 7 p.m., Saturday, April 23, at the Cape Henlopen High School theater in Lewes.
The program features Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto in A Major,” with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Principal Clarinet Yao Guang Zhai as guest soloist.
The concert also includes Weber’s Overture to “Euryanthe” and Brahms’ “Symphony No. 2.”
“We bring our 24th season to its finale with some of the most uplifting, energetic and rousing of the classical and romantic repertoire,” said Julien Benichou, Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra music director. “We are particularly pleased to have Yao Guang Zhai join us for the ‘Clarinet Concerto,’ one of Mozart’s most haunting and technically challenging compositions.”
Individual tickets are $50. A limited number of free tickets are available for students 18 years old and under, with accompanying parents admitted for $10 each. Reservations are required for the free tickets, and may be made by calling 888-846-8600,
To ensure the safety of its audience members and musicians, the orchestra requires proof of COVID-19 vaccination for everyone entering venues.
To learn more or order tickets, go to midatlanticsymphony.org or purchase at the door.
German composer Carl Maria von Weber, best known for his operatic works, created “Euryanthe” between 1817 and 1823. Although the full opera is seldom performed today, the overture is celebrated as an outstanding example of the early German Romantic style. It features themes that appear throughout what Weber described as a grand heroic-romantic opera.
Johannes Brahms composed his “Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73” in summer 1877, remarkably quick work given the 21 years he labored over his “First Symphony.” This second symphony is one of his most cheerful works. Perhaps reflecting its composition while Brahms was living on the shores of a beautiful Austrian lake, the symphony is sometimes called his “Pastoral,” an obvious reference to the Beethoven symphony with the same name.
The “Clarinet Concerto” was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s last major instrumental composition before his untimely death at age 35. He composed it for clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler, a friend and a fellow Freemason. The soloist’s second theme in the first movement explores the entire range of the clarinet, often leaping from one extreme to the other; it is frequently used in clarinet auditions for major orchestras.
Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Yao Guang Zhai served as associate principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and principal clarinet of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He won top prizes at the Hellam and Blount-Slawson young artist competitions, and at the Aspen Music Festival and Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra concerto competition. A native of Taiyuan, China, Yao began his musical studies on the violin at age 3 and commenced clarinet lessons at age 10. He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, Calif., and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
