Look at what you missed???

The October concert was a BLAST.
Thomas Bacon played so movingly and with such feeling in the first half that some of the audience were moved to tears.And the horn players in the audience held their breath.
As for the St Hubert Mass...here is a taste of what happened

A short video from last night's performance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqsr0r3_ht8&feature=youtu.be

Jason had the horns face the altar, as is traditional for this piece. Having the bells of 26 horns facing you and playing is something you don't forget. Well done to Dr Marty Wheeler Burnett for holding her own on the Trinity Cathedral organ.

First Rehearsal

The first rehearsal for the St Hubert Mass was fantastic...16 horns ranging in age and ability from High School to Omaha Symphony. Next rehearsal tonight (Friday) and twice the number should turn up. This is the Massed Horns of Nebraska! And they sound great.

Not only a Horn player

Those of you who enjoy our Artistic Director's pre-concert talks might like to know that he will be giving the pre-concert talks before the Symphony Orchestra Master Works series until Christmas. Different subjects...same Jason.

The first concert of the season

And what a concert! We are presenting the St Hubert's Mass...the Huntsman's Mass for Organ and Horns. Jason will not say how many horns but at the moment it is a number between 18 and 25.Thomas Bacon will be guest Horn player and Marty Burnett will be playing the magnificent organ at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. There is a saying in church music that " the organ always wins". This time we shall see.

Whoops

The last concert of the season will be on June 5th, not the 3rd, which is what it says on the side panel on the left of this message.
Sorry

Message from Jason

In June Omaha Consort continues its cycle of nonets featuring the finest examples of the genre.  Last season we presented the nonet that started it, Louis Spohr's 1813 Nonet.  In the concert we performed Joseph Rheinberger's Nonet, composed in 1885.  Both were Omaha premieres of these masterpieces.

In our upcoming nonet program, Dressed to the Nines, we present the missing link, which connects the Spohr and Rheinberger.  While residing in Vienna Franz Lachner, a friend of Schubert, discovered Spohr's Nonet and in 1857 he composed his own after moving to Munich.  Lachner's brilliant composition student, Rheinberger, was then exposed to the genre.  Lachner's Nonet is essentially an early Romantic symphony for nine players.  It features beautiful writing for the winds and lush harmonies in the strings.  A century following the Lachner Nonet comes the 1959 Nonet of Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinu.  The work was composed in his final year of life and came as the composer was dying from cancer.  It is a colorful neoclassical work that was commissioned to celebrate the 35th year of the Czech Nonet, a group of nine musicians founded after resurrecting the Spohr Nonet from complete obscurity and exploring the powerful genre.  The nonet is truly a "symphony of nine".

Along with the Omaha premieres of the Lachner and Martinu there is also a world premiere of Phill Smith's Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground, a work featuring the typical nonet scoring of violin, viola, cello, bass, and wind quintet plus electric guitar!  Composer and guitarist, Phill Smith,  will join musicians of Omaha Symphony to present a full spectrum look at the growth of the nonet over three centuries.

Everyone got the joke

Mozart was a practical joker and he wrote his “joke” composition to sound as if the musicians had never seen the music before and would never be asked back to play again. Now everyone knows that the best humor sounds effortless and that this can only be achieved by people that are talented and very experienced. Last night the Omaha Consort nailed it. The musicians, with smiles on their faces, took the audience on a wild ride through dissonances, musical clichés and random tempo changes, all interspersed with passages of lyrical beauty when they got it “right”.

It was an “insider” joke by a musical genius, and the audience loved it.

Jason reveals all

If you saw the film Amadeus you will know that Mozart was a prankster all his life. What you may not know was that he also played "insider" jokes within his music. Come along to the next Omaha Concert performance on Thursday 23rd May and be let into the secret side of Mozart's genius. Make sure you get there early and listen to Jason Dewater's talk where he will reveal all.
We shall also be taking in a bit of Beethoven... so good for the soul...and another World Premier by Phill Smith.
Come at 6:00 when the doors open and relax with a complimentary glass of wine with hors d'oeuvres and get a front row seat at 6:30 when Jason starts his talk.
For those of you who can't wait to hear Jason speak...he will also be giving the pre-concert talks for the Omaha Symphony Masterclass concerts this weekend at the Holland Center.

Easter preview

Sooooo, we all started Easter with motets by Bruckner. Those of us who sing in church choirs knew at least one of them, intimately, but it was wonderful to hear how Madrigali et al, and their conductor Dr Matthew Harden interpreted them so beautifully. And afterwards Ernest Richardson spoke movingly about the Stravinsky Mass. The Mass itself brought goose bumps to the listeners. This year will be an Easter to remember.

Mass in the church for Easter

We are all working hard towards the next performance on Wednesday 27^th March. Because this is the Wednesday before Easter the Consort is doing something different. Madrigali et al will be joining us to sing some of the motets from Bruckner’s Mass and then musicians and choir will perform Stravinsky’s, a glorious work, written from the heart. This is a Premier in Omaha of this work, performed as it was written for small orchestra and choir. We are very proud to have Ernest Richardson as our guest conductor for the Stravinsky Mass with Tara Cowherd singing the soprano solo parts.

It should be a wonderful evening…and what a marvelous way to start the journey to Easter.

Laughter by candle light

The Eve of Valentine’s Day…all the ladies carrying red roses…chocolate and champagne…and Schubert by candle light. A marvelous evening.

We also found that, as well as blowing a mean trombone as Principle trombonist in the Symphony, Patrick Pfister takes really good photographs. Look for examples of his images from the Schubert Concert on the web site.  www.OmahaConsort.org.

At the end of the performance we had a surprise encore. Margot Romig-Motycka had written a “Dialogue between Horn and Viola”. So now we have to ask ourselves “Should classical music be this much fun?”