The Dayton Philharmonic celebrated their 75th anniversary in and released an anniversary CD featured here on our Spotlight , but their big celebration was in , when they moved into the new Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center that March and started performing in the breath-taking Mead Theater.
In honor of the occasion, they published a commemorative book full of historical photos and the history of the orchestra. Neal Gittleman, Music Director.
Neal Gittleman conducting a Classical Connections concert. But I get more into how the music works, rather than telling stories about what the composer was eating at the time. My intent is to plant some little land mines in the consciousness of the audience that will go off when we get to that point in the music. AD: Can you give me an example of how you constructed a Connections concert? NG: Sure. So we opened the Connections concerts with the Sleeping Beauty waltz β a short curtain-raiser.
We did demonstrations of the Ukrainian folk songs in the symphony and how Tchaikovsky used them, often by repeating the folk tune in changing contexts. Then after intermission we did a complete performance of the symphony followed by a discussion session. Some look to it as an introduction to classical music β they need just a little more information than the die-hard music geeks. We sell subscriptions to the Connections concerts.
But we also offer a Friday night subscription of six concerts which is a mix of some regular and some Connections. The tone of the concerts is more relaxed than the regular Classical series programs. What really excites me? How can I try to communicate that to someone else?
