Concert to explore childhood themes

  • 2015-11-15
The Winston-Salem Symphony is set to play a concert dedicated to childhood as expressed through music.

The orchestra will present ‘Mahler & More’, with Robert Moody, the music director, on the podium, and soprano Kathryn Mueller as the guest artist.

For the upcoming concert, Moody has chosen three works: Symphony No. 4 in G Major by Gustav Mahler, Mason Bates' “Rusty Air in Carolina”, and Samuel Barber's ‘Knoxville: Summer of 1915’ op. 241. Each of the three presents some aspect of childhood visions or memories.

In his Fourth Symphony, Mahler creates a child's vision of life and death. Mahler wrote several works dealing with children and death, of which the most famous is probably ‘Kindertotenlieder’ (Songs on the Death of Children), which he composed between 1901 and 1904.

Samuel Barber composed ‘Knoxville’ in 1947, and based it on a prose-poem by James Agee. The work shows the way a child sees an evening in the Southern U.S. in the summer. The contemporary work ‘Rusty Air in Carolina’, depicts a North Carolina summer (including the buzzing of insects) and the influence of the blues on the music of the south.

The concert will be given twice, with one taking place today at 3:00 pm and another on Tuesday at 7:30 pm, at the Stevens Center. Orchestra managers might consider creating festive Banners to hang in the concert hall to celebrate both the season and the works being played.
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