Punch Howarth
Linus Lerner returns as conductor of SASO in their regular five-concert 2017-18 season of beautiful, exciting music. Programs will include the well-known – new works – excitement – the exotic – thrilling soloists, playing to enthusiastic audiences. SASO musicians are skilled, dedicated men and women who have spent hours of practice in bedrooms, cellars, bathrooms and eventually rehearsal halls. These “Dream” season concerts are performed on Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m. at SaddleBrooke and in Oro Valley on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m.
A preseason special free concert sponsored by the Mexican Government will feature Mexican concert selections and great opera arias sung by winners of the Linus Lerner International Voice Competition. This concert will be performed at the Fox Theater in midtown Tucson on September 15. Conducting will be Maestro Lerner and guest conductor Alejandro Sanchez-Navarro.
Opening the regular season on October 14 and 15, violinist Chloe Trevor will be featured in Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto and Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Amanda Harberg’s recent work Solis will be anticipated. Two exciting works, will open, Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, and close, 4 Slavonic Dances Op. 46 by Dvorak, the concert.
Guest conductor Diego Sanchez Hasse will front the orchestra on November 18 and 19. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral, leads a program that opens with Overture to Rossini’s Opera William Tell, Rachmaninoff’s Romantic Piano Concerto No. 3 will be performed by Yelena Beriyeva.
Three programs are scheduled for 2018, opening with a special Chinese New Year concert with compositions by Lu, Zhou, Liu and Wang-Lang. Joining the orchestra will be the Tucson Sino Choir. Guzheng and erhu Chinese instruments will be used. Concert dates are January 27 and 28.
March 10 and 11 concerts will welcome back Christi Amonson soprano singing Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 and Poulenc’s Gloria along with the SASO Chorus. Pete Fine also returns playing his Electric Guitar Concerto No. 2. The winner of the Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition will also perform. The final pair of season concerts will be April 14 and 15. Rachmaninoff’s superb Symphonic Dances share the spotlight with Lauren Roth soloing in Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Opening the concert is Rainbow Body by Theofanidis. For more information about SASO, go to www.sasomusic.org.