In Thursday’s (5/12) St. Cloud Times (Minnesota), Stephanie Dickrell writes, “The final notes of Saturday’s concert will be a bittersweet moment for Andrew Altenback, artistic director and principal conductor for the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra. They will be his last in that position with the area group. Altenback was offered a position as music director of opera at the Boston Conservatory in Massachusetts. He’s happy about the new opportunity, he said, but he’s also sad to be leaving the people of St. Cloud and the orchestra. … ‘As a musician, I’ve grown a lot,’ he said. He’s gotten to work with a variety of music types from orchestra to choral to opera. … Altenback’s final concert will feature four pieces that are a nice variety, he said. The featured work is ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,’ by Modest Mussorgsky, who was inspired to compose the piece by pieces of artwork. To reinforce this idea, the orchestra is setting up an exhibition in the lobby in conjunction with Visual Arts Minnesota.” Altenbeck’s final concert in St. Cloud also will include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, with baritone Andrew Wilkowske, and Chagall and his Fiddlers by the Twin Cities-based composer Aaron David Miller.
Posted May 12, 2011
