Season Overview

 

Founded in 1975 The Civic Orchestra of Tucson celebrates its thirty-fifth season of playing free concerts for the Tucson area.  The 2010-2011 COT season finds the orchestra embarking in several new directions.  First the orchestra has removed one concert program from the season, but each of the remaining programs will be repeated.  This not only allows the musicians more preparation time between concerts, but it also lets the orchestra play in more locations expanding its potential audience.  And all concerts produced by COT remain free to our audiences.

 

Second, the orchestra will offer at least two concerts this season in Green Valley.  The realignment of concert production means that our music enjoyed by Tucsonans for the past thirty-five years will also be available in Green Valley for no admission charge.  The orchestra will play each of its Green Valley programs in at the Community Performing Arts Center on Continental Road.

 

The theme for the upcoming season is Russians and Romantics.  The fall concert in November features music from three Russian composers.  Mikhail Glinka, an early Romantic composer also sometimes called the Father of Russian Music; Vasily Kalinnikov, a Post Romantic composer who was encouraged by Tchaikovsky; and Sergei Prokofiev, a prolific Twentieth-Century composer—are our Russians.  The Romantics for our pre-spring concert in March are Felix Mendelssohn an early romantic; Johannes Brahms, clearly one of the masters of the era; and Camille Saint-Saens, the epitome of French music.

 

Soloists with COT this season are Aryo Wicaksono and Clark Evans.  Mr. Wicaksono, a pianist, soloed with the orchestra in 2009 playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1.  This year he returns to Tucson from Australia to play the popular and critically acclaimed Piano Concerto No. 3 of the same composer.  This concerto is considered by many Prokofiev’s finest work for piano soloist.

 

Clark Evans, a former COT Young Artist’s Competition junior division winner in 2008 returns in March to play the Saint-Saens Concerto for Cello No. 1.  Although Saint-Saens is probably best known for The Carnival of the Animals, a light and humorous piece if paired with the Ogden Nash narration, his two compositions for cello were of a more serious nature.  Mr. Evans plays the first concerto which opens with storm and passion and continuing with a series of sections rather than themes and developments makes tremendous demands of the soloist.  Despite the difficulty, this concerto has always been a favorite of cellists.