“Whatcom Symphony Orchestra music director Yaniv Attar says that ‘for sure,’ the symphony’s concert on Sunday, Nov. 22, at Mount Baker Theatre is an anniversary concert,” writes Margaret Bikman in Tuesday’s (11/17) Bellingham Herald (Washington). “ ‘One is ours,’ he says, ‘and the bigger anniversary is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.’ On the program are excerpts from the first and second suites from Prokofiev’s ballet music for Romeo and Juliet.… To open the concert, the orchestra will perform a commissioned world premiere of Hitherto by New York composer Sean Hickey…. Hickey travels a lot, and, he says, ‘I generally compose at the piano and airplanes, which is to say on paper as well as on computer.’ He composed Hitherto on trains and planes from Washington state, San Francisco, Berlin and London, as well as at his home in Brooklyn. Hickey began as a jazz guitarist, so it follows that his influences include not only such classical composers as Shostakovich, Ravel and Stravinsky, but also rock legends like Frank Zappa. The last piece on the program is Max Bruch’s Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra in E minor.”
Posted November 19, 2015
