New River Valley Symphony to perform Beethoven's Fifth in final concert of the year
The Virginia Tech Department of Music presents the New River Valley Symphony on Saturday, May 2 at 8 p.m. in Burruss Auditorium.
Under the direction of Maestro James Glazebrook, the orchestra will perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of von Weber in this, its final concert of the year.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with its opening four notes of three short and one long, is undoubtedly one of the world’s most recognizable and celebrated compositions. First premiered in Vienna in December 1808 with Beethoven conducting, this symphony is a perfect example of his life’s work in developing a thematic approach to orchestral compositions.
Written in 1943, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of von Weber is one of his most popular works and follows Beethoven’s idea of a unifying theme. Unlike Beethoven’s Fifth, however, where the theme is repeated in every movement throughout the work, Hindemith adopts four themes from various works by Carl Maria von Weber and creates four movements with a different theme in each one.
The New River Valley Symphony is a university-community orchestra with 80 student, faculty and community resident musicians selected through an audition process. Under the baton of Music Director James Glazebrook, the ensemble performs symphonic literature of the highest aesthetic value.
Glazebrook teaches violin and viola, conducting, and string methods at Virginia Tech. His varied career has encompassed professional performance, conducting, and music education. As a violinist, he has been a member of the San Diego Symphony and Opera Orchestras, and concertmaster of the Colorado Springs, N.H. Music Festival and Roanoke Symphony Orchestras. He has been a guest conductor for the Roanoke Symphony, the La Jolla Civic Orchestra, Opera Roanoke, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. Glazebrook is also the conductor of the Roanoke Youth Symphony.
Tickets for the New River Valley Symphony concerts are $8 for adults and $5 for seniors/students and are available in advance by calling the University Unions and Student Activities Ticket Office at (540) 231-5615, online, or at the door one hour prior to performance.
