WENATCHEE — Audiences will hear the sounds of “la bella vita” — Italian for “the good life” — at the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra’s next concert, “When in Rome.”
About 70 musicians will play at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Numerica Performing Arts Center, 123 N. Wenatchee Ave.
Three pieces that celebrate the capital city of Italy will be performed: “Roman Carnival Overture” by Louis-Hector Berlioz, “Les contes d’Hoffman” by Jacques Offenbach and “Pines of Rome” by Ottorino Respighi.
Symphony conductor Nikolas Caoile called last Thursday from Ellensburg, where he said the Central Washington University music department had just gotten over being hit with a bout of Covid.
“In terms of size and scope, this is one of the bigger concerts we’ve done with huge instrumentation,” he said of Saturday’s show.
Special instruments include: celesta (resembling a small upright piano), harp, piano, and a deep percussion section with timpani, chimes, bells, snare drum, bass drum and cymbals. Birdsong is even part of one piece, so that song includes a recording of nightingales.
To prepare for the concerts, symphony musicians rehearse together and also practice at home with a metronome and a reference recording.
Caoile put the program together and said, “Since then, I have been doing my own personal study, but also recruiting and putting together a rehearsal schedule so all of the elements of this music can be rehearsed in the most efficient manner.”
The “Roman Carnival Overture” is from an opera called “Benvenuto Cellini” and Caoile said: “An overture is a catalog of all the themes you will hear in the opera, itself. So, it’s a bunch of aria tunes, like a mini catalog, in the opening.”
One of the more famous tunes is played by the warm, woodsy instrument the English horn.
“Pines of Rome” is another colorful piece from a trilogy about Rome that includes a tribute to the Roman festivals, fountains, and in this one, the trees.
The song inspired animators to create a visual representation of the sounds in the film “Fantasia 2000.”
Caoile said the piece “is guaranteed to draw a standing applause because it is so big, thrilling and stunning in its build. It’s not a sleeper, let’s just say.”
The Wenatchee symphony’s last concert, a Veteran’s Day program, sold out.
The final show of the symphony’s season is called “Toast of the Town” on April 22. It will feature “New World Symphony” by Antonín Dvořák, who was a composition teacher at the New York Conservatory in the late 1800s, teaching American composers to have an “American” sound using African American spirituals.
Tickets for “When in Rome” are $20-$60 for the live or virtual streaming performance and can be purchased online at wenatcheesymphony.org or by calling the box office at (509)-663-2787.
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