Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.—The Starkville-Mississippi State University Symphony Orchestra will present the “Best of the Bs” during a March 19 concert in historic Lee Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium.
Free to all, the 7:30 p.m. program will feature works by Johannes Brahms (1833-97), Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
The concert will begin with one of the world’s most beloved overtures, “Academic Festival Overture” (1880). Written by Brahms on the occasion of his receiving an honorary doctorate from Poland’s University of Breslau, the work was built on collegiate popular melodies of the 19th century.
Also part of the evening program is Boccherini’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra to be performed by Simona Barbu. A former SSO principal cellist and MSU faculty member, she is an international soloist and endowed chair at the University of North Dakota.
The orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5 in C Minor” will round out the second half of the concert. Considered one of the most famous classical music compositions, the symphony is known for its four-note motif that is pronounced at the beginning of the work and repeated in various forms throughout all four movements.
For additional concert information, contact SSO music director Michael Brown at 662-325-3070 or mbrown@colled.msstate.edu.
Founded in 1969, the Starkville-MSU Symphony Association is a nonprofit volunteer organization whose members work to educate, enlighten and share classical music with the city, university campus and other communities in the Golden Triangle region. For more information, visit www.starkvillesymphony.org and facebook.com/StarkvilleSymphony.
In addition to MSU and the City of Starkville, major association contributors include the Mississippi Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Renasant Bank, Starkville Convention and Visitors Bureau and Columbus-based Gildea Foundation.
The association accepts tax-deductible donations via the MSU Foundation. To contribute, contact Lynn Durr at 662-325-8918 or ldurr@advservices.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.