The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s Season Finale Concert will now be performed at the Easton High School Auditorium. This concert, which was originally scheduled to be performed at the Todd Performing Arts Center was forced to change venues when the college recently advised the MSO that subsequent to an inspection the auditorium became unavailable. Unfortunately, the College has identified several facility issues impacting the theater as a result of its extended disuse and is currently unable to host events. The Mid-Atlantic Symphony was able to immediately secure Easton High’s School auditorium, which offers ample seating and parking, and is looking forward to making a return to the concert stage in April with an outstanding program featuring Yao Guang Zhai, Principal Clarinet of the Baltimore Symphony, performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major. The concert also includes Weber’s Overture to Euryanthe and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.
Clarinetist Yao Guang Zhai
After what promises to be an uplifting concert to end the Mid-Atlantic Symphony’s 24th season, we invite you to join us at our Legacy Award Gala Dinner as we honor the legacy of Mrs. Martha Read for all of her contributions to the MSO. The Gala dinner will now be held at the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy located at 114 S. Washington Street, Easton, MD 21601. There is ample parking on both South Washington Street and in the parking lot, opposite ESLC. For those who wish to attend the post-concert celebration, featuring four gourmet courses catered by Chef Jordan Lloyd of Hambleton House Catering & Events, tickets can be purchased on the MSO’s website or by contacting the MSO at 1-888-846-8600.
“We bring our 24th season to its finale with some of the most uplifting, energetic and rousing of the classical and romantic repertoire,” said Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Music Director Julien Benichou. “We are particularly pleased to have Yao GuangZhai join us for the Clarinet Concerto, one of Mozart’s most haunting and technically challenging compositions.”
Maestro Julien Benichou
The concert will be presented on Friday, April 22 at 7 PM at Easton High School; on Saturday, April 23 12 at 7 PM at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, DE; and on Sunday, April 24 at 7 PM at the Performing Arts Center in Ocean City, MD.
Individual tickets are $50. In addition, a limited number of free tickets are available for students 18 years and under, with accompanying parents admitted for $10 each. Reservations are required for the free tickets, and may be made by calling 888-846-8600,
For additional information about the April concerts or to order tickets, visit www.midatlanticsymphony.org. Tickets also may be ordered by telephone at 888-846-8600, or purchased at the door.
To ensure the safety of its audience members and musicians, the Orchestra requires proof of COVID-19 vaccination for everyone entering venues.
German composer Carl Maria von Weber, best known for his operatic works, created Euryanthe between 1817 and 1823. Although the full opera is seldom performed today, the Overture is celebrated as an outstanding example of the early German Romantic style. It features themes that appear throughout what Weber described as a “grand heroic-romantic opera”.
Johannes Brahms composed his Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 in the summer of 1877, remarkably quick work given the 21 years he labored over his First Symphony. The Second Symphony is one of the most cheerful of his works. Perhaps reflecting its composition while Brahms was living on the shores of a beautiful Austrian lake, the Symphony is sometimes called his “Pastoral”, an obvious reference to the Beethoven symphony with the same name.
The Clarinet Concerto was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s last major instrumental composition before his untimely death at the age of 35. He composed it for the clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler, a friend and a fellow Freemason. The soloist’s second theme in the first movement explores the entire range of the clarinet, often leaping from one extreme to the other; it is frequently used in clarinet auditions of major orchestras.
Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Yao GuangZhai served as associate principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and principal clarinet of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He won top prizes at the Hellam and Blount-Slawson young artist competitions and at the Aspen Music Festival and Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra concerto competition. A native of Taiyuan, China, Yao began his musical studies on the violin at age three and commenced clarinet lessons at age 10. He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, and the Curtis Institute of Music.
The only professional symphony orchestra serving southern Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council; the Talbot County Arts Council; the Worcester County Arts Council; the Sussex County, DE Council; and the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, Inc.
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