This Saturday evening, February 13th, the Carroll Symphony Orchestra will present its Masterworks Concert at the Carroll County Performing Arts Center. Because the CSO encourages parents to bring their children, the concert begins at 7:30.
The program includes what Conductor Terry Lowry terms the “meat and potatoes” of the show, Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. “The 250th anniversary of the composer’s birthday was in December, but this is the first opportunity we’ve had to be able to celebrate it together because of the pandemic. The seventh is a favorite of audiences and musicians, and while it may not immediately start running through your mind, you know it. You’ll recognize parts of it from its use in movies, commercials, and tv shows.”
The program will also include the winning compositions from the CSO’s 2020 Young Composers Competition. You’ll hear the orchestra perform original works by the four students in the third, eighth, ninth, and twelfth grades, who not only composed the pieces but also orchestrated them under the tutelage of the orchestra’s conductor, who exclaimed, “It’s wonderful music! I can’t wait to hear it, and I can’t wait for them to hear it performed!”Â
For the Valentine’s Eve concert, the symphony will perform what Lowry considers one of the most romantic pieces of music, the Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni.
Rounding out the program with the orchestra, pianist and Steinway Artist Lowry will play Claire de Lune as well as premier a new work of his own.
“The concert is a wonderful opportunity to get out and do something in a safe environment of socially-distanced seating. The hall has 1,100 seats, but we are only letting in 300 people. Everyone is required to wear a mask and will have their temperature checked at the door. You can feel confident and safe because there’s plenty of room to spread out and not have to sit too close to people.
“It’s been so long since we’ve gotten to have live music. Maybe we’ve taken it for granted. The Symphony hasn’t played since July fourth, which was an outdoor event. We’ve done a few indoor things with our Community WInd Ensemble and Carrollton Jazz Band , and we’ve been really careful about making those events safe. I cherish the opportunity to get to play because you never know when something like this [Covid shutdown] is going to happen. You’ve got to savor it and not miss this opportunity! We musicians perform not only to make beautiful music but to share beautiful music with others!
“The Carroll County Performing Arts Center has the best acoustics of any concert hall in the State of Georgia, so the audience is in for a real treat. The sound is incredible. The other auditoriums in our community–at the Townsend Center, the Mabry Center, and the Carrollton Center for the Arts–are designed more for Broadway-type musicals. The Townsend Center’s an opera hall, designed for spectacle. They’ve all got a proscenium, they’ve got a pit for the orchestra, they’ve got luxurious, thick curtains. The county’s center is a concert hall: there are no curtains to get in the way of the sound; the audience has a full view of everything happening on the stage. The room was built for what we’re going to do Saturday night. The symphony has performed there before, and I’ve done some recitals there, so we’ve had a chance to try out the acoustics and see what works, and that’s why we’re so excited to perform there again.”
The program lasts an hour and 15 minutes, with no intermission, so families can be home by 9:00 to get the children to bed.
Call 770-838-1083 to get your tickets for the Carroll Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks Concert.
