“Listen up, sports fans!” writes Steve Siegel in Sunday’s (1/12) Morning Call (Allentown, PA). “Now coming to a stadium near you (make that Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown) on Saturday, Jan. 18, the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, under guest conductor Carl Topilow, will present an entire sports-themed program [featuring] tunes from favorite films such as ‘Rocky,’ ‘The Natural,’ ‘Chariots of Fire,’ and selections of Sam Spence’s music from the soundtracks of NFL Films, along with Olympic fanfares…. Topilow, founder and conductor of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, will lead the ASO in a program that features a host of local talent…. Narrators Dennis Razze, associate artistic director of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and head of the theater department at DeSales University, and Kurt Landes, president and general manager of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs … will provide a ‘broadcast commentary’ during the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, where that famous theme is tossed back and forth in an hysterical orchestral scrimmage…. ‘We’re encouraging audience members to wear their favorite sports team attire,’ says ASO music director and conductor Diane Wittry. ‘This show is very different…. But what I like most … is that … it really will showcase the orchestra.’ ”
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