M E D I A  A D V I S O R Y

March 10, 2016 – Richmond, Virginia The Richmond Symphony will perform a concert with works by Copland, Laura Schwendinger and Brahms on Saturday, April 2 at 8pm. The Altria Masterworks concert will be led by Music Director Steven Smith and held at the Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Arts Center.

The concert begins with Copland’s well-known Appalachian Spring Suite, a piece that was originally written for a Martha Graham ballet. The musical story revolves around the courtship and wedding of a young couple and their newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills. It is a celebration of new beginnings and evokes the spirit of American possibility. This piece is also famous for its use of the traditional shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.”

Following Copland will be Laura Elise Schwendinger’s Waking Dream featuring Richmond Symphony’s principal flutist Mary Boodell. In describing the piece, Schwendinger says, “Like golden reflections of the setting sun on water, Waking Dream is meant to evoke an intensely shimmering color world of sound, with the darkness of the water below the surface at all times.”

The concert will conclude with Brahms Symphony No. 2. Brahms wrote the piece during a summer holiday in southern Austria and it is considered to be the cheeriest of his symphonies. A happy and pleasant mood flows throughout work, and its brief moments of darkness are quickly dispelled, providing listeners with a joyful experience.

Tickets start at $10 online at richmondsymphony.com or by calling 1.800.514 ETIX.
Altria Masterworks are free for children 18 and under with a paid adult ticket. College student single tickets are $7 and Soundwave college student subscriptions are available for $25.

The Residency of Laura Elise Schwendinger is made possible through Music Alive: New Partnerships, a residency program of New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. This national program is designed to establish new relationships between composers and orchestras, and to help orchestras present new music to the public and build support for new music within their institutions. Leadership funding for Music Alive is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and The ASCAP Foundation Bart Howard Fund.

The Masterworks Series is sponsored by Altria. The guest artist sponsor is Williams Mullen. The media sponsor is Richmond Times-Dispatch.

About Steven Smith, conductor

About Laura Elise Schwendinger,  composer
Music Alive: New Partnerships Composer-in-Residence

#          #          #

About the Richmond Symphony

Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus and more than 260 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 200,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, and radio broadcasts. The Symphony also provides educational outreach programs to over 50,000 students and teachers each year. The Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.