The Wellesley Symphony Orchestra will open its 2017-2018 season on Sunday, October 8 with an all-Beethoven concert. Pianist Mana Tokuno will join the orchestra for the the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat. Also on the program are the Consecration of the House Overture and the iconic Symphony No. 6, Pastoral.
Written for the opening of the remodeled Viennese Theater in der Josefstadt in 1822, the Consecration of the House Overture opens in the Baroque French style, with slow dotted rhythms followed by a lively orchestral fugue. Festive trumpets and kettledrums herald a celebratory procession. As for the Piano Concerto No. 2, it is actually the first piano concerto that Beethoven wrote, begun in 1774 when he was 23.
Pianist Mana Tokuno was the first prize winner of the prestigious Competition Internationále, and she also received the Leo Sirota Award for Piano Solo Performance at the Corpus Christi International Competition as well as the Special Award for Schubert Interpretation art the International Competition Valesia Music in Varallo, Italy. Tokuno’s principal teachers were Midori Tanabe at the Tokyo International University of Fine Arts and Music, where she was an honors gradutate, and Victor Rosenbaum at the New England Conservatory of Music where she received the Master of Music degree with academic honors and was selected to perform with the NEC Orchestra at the commencement concert. Tokuno also holds the Graduate Diploma in Collaborative Piano from New England Conservatory.
The concert is at MassBay Community College, 50 Oakland, Street, Wellesley, at 3 PM. Former orchestra president George Brown will give a pre-concert talk at 2:15. Individual tickets for the concert are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and students, and free for children under 12 and may be purchased at Wellesley Books, Walgreens on Washington Street, Andrews Pharmacy on Weston Road, on-line, at the door and at PO Box 81860, Wellesley Hills, MA, 02481. Four-concert season subscribers save 25% off individual tickets: adults $75, seniors and students $60. This year new subscribers may get two subscriptions for the price of one; subscriptions are available at the PO Box address. There is plenty of free parking at the college. Call 781-235-0515 or visit www.wellesleysymphony.org.
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