Current Season

May 2 – Classical III

This is our 60th Season “closing concert extraordinaire!”  This evening will be an atmospheric excursion into the exotic: both Ravel and Ginastera create an otherworldly experience for their ballets from which their two suites come.  Ravel’s masterpiece Daphnis and Chloe was his great ballet set in ancient Greece.  It opens with one of the best depictions of a sunrise in all of music (and there are many, many examples of sunrises in music!).  You might not remember the Argentine composer Ginastera, but we program pieces by this South American great as often as possible and his ballet Panambi is a tour de force in early 20th century music ideas.  It is his first ballet and actually his first published work and is the telling of a supernatural legend about a chief’s daughter, two men who love her, and a sorcerer who controls events.  Just as Ravel’s piece has a sunrise, Ginastera’s includes a passage of moonlight.

Debussy’s Danse for Harp and Strings is two short movements for solo harp with string orchestra accompaniment.  Wonderful harp soloist Naoko Nakamura, who has played many times with us, will join the SSO for this beautiful work.

Does all of this sound intriguing?  Don’t miss this concert!

March 7 – Classical Concert II

You probably never thought you’d hear the music of Duke Ellington in an orchestra concert, but the big band great, Ellington, wrote quite a few pieces for orchestra.  His ballet, The River, is where the music for tonight’s suite comes from.  Each movement is a different musical treatment of water and how Ellington thought it might move or sound like.  Delius’ A Song of Summer is a beautiful preview of the coming season as we end winter; peaceful, tuneful, and lovely.

Horatio Parker isn’t a composer name that many audience members will recognize, but we are going to change that!  Parker was a late 19th Century American composer and his music is terrific.  Come hear a composer who deserves more performances!

December 6 – Christmas Pops I

December 7 – Christmas Pops II

This annual celebration is the Sherman Symphony’s great holiday show!  There’s always something new and exciting, so plan to come every year and see what we’ve got planned for you!  If you’re new to the SSO: we have a beautifully decorated concert space, lighted trees, holiday music, a fun Sing-Along, and special plans you’ll just have to come and see!  All seating is table seating, so bring snacks to enjoy during the concert–and we’ll have some light snacks and drinks for sale, too!  Santa always makes a visit and he’s happy to take pictures with children in his sleigh.  This family-friendly show is a great way to start your holiday season!

December 6 – Christmas Pops I

December 7 – Christmas Pops II

This annual celebration is the Sherman Symphony’s great holiday show!  There’s always something new and exciting, so plan to come every year and see what we’ve got planned for you!  If you’re new to the SSO: we have a beautifully decorated concert space, lighted trees, holiday music, a fun Sing-Along, and special plans you’ll just have to come and see!  All seating is table seating, so bring snacks to enjoy during the concert–and we’ll have some light snacks and drinks for sale, too!  Santa always makes a visit and he’s happy to take pictures with children in his sleigh.  This family-friendly show is a great way to start your holiday season!

October 18 – Classical Concert I

This is the SSO’s 60th Season, and we are beginning the year with some of our favorite works.  We’ve all heard of Romanticism, that art and music movement in the 19th Century, and these pieces are quintessentially Romantic.  Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Journey Overture is the experience of a sea voyage played in notes and melodies by the orchestra.  Listen for the waves and seagulls but there won’t be any scary moments!  Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser is the tale of a medieval German knight who has fallen from the true and narrow path of personal conduct that is demanded of that rank.  His ideas on music’s role in opera (or, as he would later call his stage works, “music drama”) were somewhat extreme and at odds with composers like Brahms.  So, we decided to put them both on this concert!  Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 was his last symphony and one of the last purely musical Romantic symphonies of the century.  Brahms’ genius in working out inventive and interesting textures and themes is in clear view in this masterful work.  And there’s a musical surprise in the last movement that you need to hear in context.  Hint: it has something to do with Wagner!

Start your musical year off right with this Romantic evening.  Bring a friend and introduce them to your Sherman Symphony Orchestra!