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Edgard Varèse:Hyperprism

Percy Grainger:The Warriors
 

“The Carmina Burana performance was the high point of my four years at Boston University. It was the most thrilling and inspiring experience of my youth! Since that time, I have continued to sing at Carnegie Hall twice a year with the St. Cecilia Chorus of New York City.“ -Joan Cavicchi, CFA ’56

Nearly 60 years ago, The Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus, under the direction of renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski, performed the East coast premiere of Carmina Burana at Symphony Hall in Boston. After their performance was finished, the musicians got on a bus and traveled overnight to New York, where they would perform the piece again at Carnegie Hall.
This year, the Symphony and Chorus will again perform this now iconic scenic cantata under the direction of David Hoose.

November 19, 1954
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana

Boston University Symphony Orchestra
and Symphonic Chorus, with the Boys Choir from Newton Public Schools
Leopold Stokowski, guest conductor
Ruth Ann Tobin, soprano
Gwendolyn Belle, mezzo-soprano
Elmer Dickey, tenor
Kenneth Shelton and John Colleary, baritones

On November 19, 1954 the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski, performed the East Coast premiere of Carmina Burana at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
On November 19, 2012, David Hoose will conduct the BU Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Carl Orff’s now-iconic scenic cantata.

Monday, April 2nd, 2012
“Requiem for a Generation: Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich”

Boston University Symphony Orchestra
and Symphonic Chorus
David Hoose, conductor
Janna Baty, soprano
Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor
Anton Belov, baritone

Concert Program

Patrick Wood Uribe: Pre-concert lecture

Patrick Wood Uribe holds a PhD in Musicology from Princeton University, a BA and MA with honors in Modern Languages from Oxford University, and a postgraduate degree in violin performance from the Royal Academy of Music. He is an Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at Boston University.

Sergei Rachmaninoff:  The Bells, Op. 35

Sergei Rachmaninoff: The Bells, Op. 35 from BU School of Music on Vimeo.

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Written in 1915 in response to an onomatopoeic Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells is a choral symphony sung in four parts, in allegiance to the poem.  The piece begins in glittering fantasy, with Silver Sleigh Bells and moves on to contentment tinged with reluctance in Wedding Bells; the two sections that follow move into more frightening, followed by funereal, territories, with only a twelfth-hour anticipatory tinge of redemption. Sung here by Janna Baty, soprano and Boston University alumni Anton Belov, baritone, and Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor, this work embodies both the sonorous meanings held by bells in our cultural rituals and the quotidian, universal sadness created by the individual and societal struggles of the world’s citizenry.

Dmitri Shostakovich:  Symphony No. 11 (The Year 1905)

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (The Year 1905) from BU School of Music on Vimeo.

Casting an eye over the previous half-century, with his Symphony No. 11, Shostakovich produces musical images of immediacy appropriate to the lurid, Technicolor era of cinema in which the piece was written (1957). With the subject of bloody revolution in the foreground, such imagery is an effective demonstration of the role the arts can play in illuminating and reflecting the world’s most complex problems.

The Boston University School of Music is proud to launch the Virtual Concert Hall, which is designed to showcase work performed by BU students and faculty. For the first time, we are able to present videos in high definition; if you experience difficulty viewing the videos, however, it may be due to your internet connection speed, and we recommended disabling the high definition by clicking on the “HD” box embedded in each video.