Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra

OPENING NIGHT EXTRAVAGANZA

Stravinsky | The Star-Spangled Banner
Strauss | Introduction of Also Sprach Zarathustra
Copland | The Tender Land: Introduction and Love Music, the Promise of Living
Strauss | Der Rosenkavalier Suite
Saint-Saëns | Symphony No. 3 (Organ)  Simon Holt, Organ

The opening program of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-25 season, its 15^th under Music Director & Conductor Toshiyuki Shimada, spans two centuries and two continents. After standing for The Star-Spangled Banner—as arranged by none other than Igor Stravinsky—the audience will thrill to the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (and, more recently, Barbie) from German composer Richard Strauss’s 1896 tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra. A trip to the Midwest of the 1930s follows: two movements from the orchestral suite based on Aaron Copland’s 1954 opera The Tender Land. The first half wraps up with more from Strauss: the suite from his 1910 comic opera Der Rosenkavalier. Following intermission, London-trained organist Simon Holt, a 25-year resident of southeastern Connecticut and Director of Salt Marsh Opera (among many other organizations), will be the soloist for a performance of French composer Camille Saint-Saëns’s sparkling Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, known as the “Organ Symphony,” dedicated to the memory of Franz Liszt, who died two months after its 1886 premiere.

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To learn more information, including a detail seating plan and programs,
please visit: ectsymphony.com or contact us at 860.443.2876