Press

The Tribune Chronicle

August 26th, 2008

Orchestra will showcase own musicians in 2008-09 season

By ANDY GRAY

The Warren Philharmonic will honor its own musicians and the people in the community it calls home with its 2008-09 season.

The season will open Sept. 28 with a salute to local veterans of the military and a program dominated by orchestral works and marches associated with the armed forces. Music director and conductor susan Davenny-Wyner hopes it will start an annual tradition. "Our mission has been to celebrate the community," Wyner said. "I see this tribute as a part of a series of concerts where each year we will do a tribute to special people in the community — teachers or service people or volunteer folks".

The orchestra will continue to reach out to young audiences with its Nov. 23 performance, which will include an instrumental petting zoo that will let young concert goers see the musicians' "tools" up close. the orchestra is also sponsoring a "Music in Art" contest for area school children, and the winning works will be displayed at Packard Music Hall and Convention Center during the concert. "It's a way to get kids excited about the mix of the visual and the aural experience and the idea of making music something they can respond to artistically," Wyner said.

With the increasing popularity of ballroom dancing thanks to television programs like "Dancing with the Stars," local dancers will join the orchestra for its final concert on March 28, 2009. They will show off their footwork while the orchestra performs familiar melodies like the "Blue Danube" waltz and Ravel's "Bolero."

"Bolero" and "Blue danube" won't be the only familiar melodies in the 2008-09 season. The opening concert will feature Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" (a Fourth of July concert staple) and Barber's "Adagio," which is prominently featured in the Oscar-winning movie "Platoon."

The Nov. 23 performance will feature Aaron Copeland's "Hoedown," which may be best known for its commercials in promoting the beef industry, and John Williams' "Star Wars' Suite." Picking those familiar works was a conscious choice by Wyner. "I'm really wanting to reach out to the audience members in that sense," she said. "They may not know the names of these pieces, but they will find them friends once they begin to hear them."

Those works also allow her to spotlight the members of the orchestra. "From a purely musical point of view, they will get a chance to hear soloists from within the orchestra and a range of music that will be very exciting to the musicians as well as the audience members."