“Two very different symphony concerts will be played at Cape Fear Community College’s Humanities & Fine Arts Center this week, a kind of embarrassment of riches, musically speaking,” writes Bob Workmon in Tuesday’s (3/15) StarNews (Wilmington, N.C.). “The North Carolina Symphony comes to town on St. Patrick’s Day with evocations of earth and sky via the imaginations of Antonio Vivaldi, Aaron Jay Kernis and Nico Muhly. Then, our very own Wilmington Symphony Orchestra joins the Classical Mystery Tour on Saturday for the music of … The Beatles. Thursday’s N.C. Symphony concert, conducted by music director Grant Llewellyn, showcases five of the orchestra’s violinists” in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “Muhly’s 2011 composition ‘Seeing is Believing’ provides employment for the fifth [violin] soloist, Karen Strittmatter Galvin and a six-string electric violin…. The Wilmington Symphony Orchestra’s big pops concert Saturday is an all-ages celebration of music standing the test of time far beyond the brief career of the quartet that produced it. Jim Owen is the founding member of Classical Mystery Tour, a group [that performs] collaborative concerts with orchestras. The sound, Owen said, really comes down to the brilliance of the recently deceased [Beatles producer] Sir George Martin. ‘Martin’s classical training came to the fore in the studio,’ Owen said.”
Posted March 16, 2016
