RESCHEDULED: FMSO Masterworks III concert set for May 7 and May 8, 2022
Program update: Covid surge limits performance to FMSO
The traditional side-by-side performance, in which the talented members of the Area Youth Symphonies’ high school orchestra join with the FMSO in one piece, has been canceled. The normal FMSO concert will continue, however, without the participation of the FMAYS musicians. Given the high transmissibility of the Omicron Variant, all parties agreed it was neither wise nor safe for that many people to be together on the stage of Festival Concert Hall. Maestro Zimmerman agreed readily to work with the FMAYS musicians in the coming months; details on that collaboration will be forthcoming.
“No Boundaries”
Saturday, May 7, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 8, 2 p.m.
Florence Price: Ethiopia’s Shadow in America
Alexander Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
Brief pre-concert talks featuring Maestro Christopher Zimmerman, called Informances, are held in Beckwith Recital Hall 45 minutes prior to each concert.
Music Director Christopher Zimmerman
The January 2022 Masterworks program will be recorded on video; season-ticket holders will be able to view the concert again for a short period of time. The FMSO also will make the concert available for viewing to those who did not attend the concert.
The third Masterworks program of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra’s 2021-22 season is an all-orchestral bonanza of music that explores the limits of our world.
Masterworks 3 contains Black American composer Florence Price’s Ethiopia’s Shadow in America, and two works by Russian composers: Alexander Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Symphony.
The FMSO’s performance of Ethiopia’s Shadow in America almost certainly will be the North Dakota premiere of the piece, which musically describes the arrival of Black slaves in America and their faith and social transitions over centuries.
Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances is an exotic scene from his opera Prince Igor that has become a showcase standalone concert piece. Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony at the age of 19 as his graduation piece from the Petrograd Conservatory. It is still recognized as one of the composer’s finest works—a combination of liveliness and wit, drama and tragedy.
The FMSO recognizes Sanford Health, Bell Bank, the North Dakota Council on the Arts, the FM Area Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and The Arts Partnership as sponsors of the Masterworks 3 concert.
