By David Amos
SAN DIEGO– It is always interesting to attend a concert where the music of a single composer is featured. If well programmed, this opportunity lends itself to hear the different aspects of a creative mind.
This will be the case in two concerts given by the 75 member Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra. The music being heard is by Camille Saint-Saens, one of the most beloved composers of the 19th Century, also known as the Romantic Period in classical music. Everyone has heard and enjoyed the familiar tunes of Saint-Saens. He lived from 1836 to 1921. His impeccable craftsmanship and appealing melodies have immortalized him, and included him in the list of the greatest composers of all time. Who would not recognize melodies from Dance Macabre, or The Carnival of the Animals? They are perennial concert favorites.
The TICO concert will play three works by Saint-Saens which are immensely popular and respected. It will start with the vigorous Marche Militaire Francaise, a movement from his Suite Algerienne, and will be followed by his Piano Concerto No. 4, with Tatiana Roitman as soloist.
Roitman has appeared as piano soloist and recitalist across North America and Europe. The BBC hailed her performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Oxford Pops Orchestra as “formidable, both accurate with rarely seen joy.” Her radio broadcasts include performances on NPR Performance Today, and New York’s classical music station WQXR. As a recipient of the Peggy Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship at Tanglewood, she worked with James Levine, Dawn Upshaw, Yo-Yo Ma, Charles Rosen, and Claude Frank. She has performed with the San Diego Symphony, and is heard on the Naxos Label in an album titled Jazz Nocturne.
The Fourth Piano Concerto is a wonderful blend of unabashed romanticism and a strict classical form, blending its various themes into a unified structure with rich melodies and wonderful exchanges between the piano solo and the orchestra
Continuing with this season’s theme of “Great Orchestral Spectaculars,” the second half of the concert will be devoted to a single work: The composer’s Symphony No. 3 for Organ and Orchestra, or as it is usually referred, the Organ Symphony. This is the most famous work ever composed for a full symphony orchestra and organ, which is called “The King of Instruments.” This combination has been attempted by many composers, but no other composition is as popular or successful as this symphonic showpiece.
TICO’s own musician, Principal Percussionist Russ Peck will be the solo organist. He is firmly rooted in San Diego, his house being home to a 1927 Robert-Morton theatre pipe organ, a 1925 Unified Reproduco pipe organ, a 1962 Hammond RT-3 Concert Organ, a 1942 Slingerland Rolling Bomber drum set, a piano, a reed organ, keyboards, several accordions, guitars ukuleles, and percussion instruments of all kinds. He has performed at Symphony Hall, both with the San Diego Symphony and as the organ soloist, accompanying silent films.
This concert will be presented twice: On January 30, 4:00 p.m., at the First United Methodist Church of Chula Vista (Off East H Street, at 951 Paseo Ranchero). This program is admission free.
The second concert will be at TICO’s home base, Tifereth Israel Synagogue on Tuesday night, February 1, at 7:30 p.m.
For more information, season brochures, season ticket packages, directions, or reservations to specific concerts, including the Summer Pops, call (619) 697 6001, or you can buy tickets online at www.tiferethisrael.com/TICO.
If you know the facilities of Tifereth Israel Synagogue, you know that there is no organ in the building. How will the orchestra play this demanding and sonically smashing work? Come in, find out, and be pleasantly surprised!
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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra and has guest conducted professional orchestras around the world.