NORTH DAKOTA (KXNET) — The Concordia Orchestra from Concordia College in Moorhead Minnesota is going on tour to a few North Dakota cities.
According to a news release, the orchestra is conducted by Dr. Kevin F.E. Sütterlin, who is the director of orchestral activities and opera and associate professor of conducting.
The program will include pieces by Maria Grenfell, Rebecca Clarke, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, as well as Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme “Enigma,” Op. 36.
The tour will also feature “to face the wind,” which is written by Dr. Steven Makela, an assistant professor of music theory and composition at the college, it’s a piece based on four Chinese poems by Wang Wei and it’s inspired by the haunting flight patterns of starlings called “murmurations.”
During that particular piece, the conductor interprets portions of Jan van IJken’s “Flight of the Starlings” to the orchestra through gestures that are related to the flight patterns, as a video is projected for the audience to see.
The orchestra is given instructions on how to respond to the gestures as well as the freedom to explore how they fit into the large ensemble, which creates the orchestral murmurations.
The soloists will include Dr. Anne Jennifer Nash, a light-lyric soprano and associate professor of voice, and Thomas Bandar, a visiting instructor of viola and violin.
The performances will be happening as follows:
- In Bismarck on Tuesday, October 31 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bismarck High School Auditorium.
- In Williston on Thursday, November 2 at 7 p.m. at the Williston High School PAC.
- In Minot on Friday, November 3 at 7 p.m. at the Magic City Campus at the Minot High School Theater.
The Concordia Orchestra is an 80-member symphony orchestra that has earned national and international acclaim with the prestigious American Prize and two Emmys.
