Tag: SASO

SASO fortieth anniversary season

Punch Howarth Members of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra (SASO), with conductor Linus Lerner, will celebrate 40 years of providing symphonic music, as well as a home for instrumental musicians. Almost all of the new season’s musical selections have been performed by the orchestra during the previous 39 years. Some of the original founding musicians…

SASO January concert for Chinese New Year

  Punch Howarth Linus Lerner and the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra will celebrate Chinese New Year in January with a series of four performances in conjunction with the local Chinese community. The orchestra has participated in this event several times in the past years. As many SASO followers are aware, the orchestra was guest artists…

SASO presents a British, Russian, French concert

Punch Howarth Crown Imperial March by William Walton is a typical British processional/ceremonial march in the mode of Elgar whose Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 was performed at the January SASO concert. Walton was one of Britain’s better 20th Century composers and composed Crown Imperial for the coronation of King George VI in May 1937 and was…

SASO wishes a happy holiday with a musical menu

Punch Howarth All of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra family wishes all our readers a joyful holiday season. At a time when most are planning menus for the celebrations, the following might be helpful. Divided into eight areas are the following: A. Drinks or Cacophonous Bartok Dry Tartini – Cor Inglese Clarinet – Solturn –…

SASO sneak preview of 2016-2017 season

Punch Howarth Selections by great well-known composers will highlight the 2016-2017 season of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Linus Lerner. Works by Beethoven, Nielsen, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Schumann and Dvorak will thrill both audiences and orchestra members. In addition, conductor Lerner has added a few esoteric and not as well-known works to challenge the…

Classical music a brief analysis

Punch Howarth A brief explanation of Classical is a necessary opening as there are music forms other than Classical; Pop music that changes with culture modifications, Jazz that stresses invention and individual expression, Folk music relating to culture groups are but a few among others. Some vocabularies relating to Classical are serious, old, complex, highbrow,…

SASO, Past, Present and Future

Punch Howarth The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra season ended on May 7 and 8 with one of their most ambitious programs that included Brahms, Samuel Barber and Berlioz. Each of these works has intrinsic difficulties that gave the orchestra no small challenge. Also with these concerts this writer of SASO articles retired as principal timpanist…

April concerts by the Southern Arizona Symphony

Punch Howarth In thinking about writing this article describing the April concert by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, my first thought was that it will be esoteric—but no; is it too abstract—and again no; what it is, is a surprisingly unique concert. Director Linus Lerner has selected works for strings and soloist, a Chinese string…

SASO final two programs preview in April and May

Punch Howarth This article is a preview of the final two concert programs of the current season by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Linus Lerner. The first of these concerts to be performed in early April following an invitational performance by SASO in mid-February at the Gramado International Music Festival in Brazil, South…