“Rei Hotoda was the unanimous choice to lead the Fresno Philharmonic, and the first woman to ever hold the orchestra’s reins wasted no time in creating a 2017-18 season rich in both modern pieces from living composers and classics from Beethoven, Debussy and more,” writes Rory Appleton in Saturday’s (7/29) Fresno Bee (Calif.). “Each of the six masterworks concerts will include a piece by an American composer, and the season will also feature works from five living composers…. ‘These pieces reflect the diversity of our country,’ she [said]…. ‘These pieces represent orchestral music happening right now in America.’ The April 2018 performance of Chinese-American composer Tan Dun’s ‘Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds,’ for example, will require audience members to pull out their phones and participate…. That very same April performance will also feature the Fresno Master Chorale [in Poulenc’s Gloria] and end with ‘La Mer’ by Claude Debussy…. The orchestra’s third masterwork concert will feature a piece by Fresno State composer Kenneth Froelich.” That concert will showcase “the orchestra’s musicians [in] Alberto Ginastera’s ‘Variaciones concertantes.’… Two pieces in the March concert [by Vaughan Williams and Lukas Foss] will also feature solos from [concertmaster] Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio.”
Posted August 1, 2017
Pictured: Rei Hotoda conducts the Fresno Philharmonic
