Fascinating Newburgh Symphony Concert Now Set

NEWBURGH – The Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra (GNSO) will perform a spectacular concert on Saturday, March 18 at 4:00 pm at Aquinas Hall on the Mount Saint Mary College campus in Newburgh. “Luminosity,” under the direction of Maestro Russell Ger, will feature the works of four composers exploring the interplay of music and color.

“As sophisticated as our human languages are, they fall dramatically short when it comes to describing sensory experiences such as taste, sound and sight,” Mr. Ger noted. “Hence the old story of failing to adequately describe an arresting sunset to a blind person. So we are forced to borrow from other parts of language. In music, this is often from the visual medium of color which, in turn, is the theme of this program.

“Michael Torke’s Bright Blue Music gives an irrepressible sense of joy. ‘Working was exuberant,’ he writes. ‘I would leave my outdoor studio and the trees and bushes seemed to dance, and the sky seemed brilliantly bright blue.’ Thea Musgrave describes naming her work as follows: ‘The title Green fr me represents either the freshness of youth, or for the plant life in our world on which we all depend.’ Anna Clyne takes as her inspiration Mark Rothko’s famous paining Yellow, ed and Orange. The music is constructed in three movements, like the form of the painting, where the finale (Orange) incorporates fragments from the previous two movements, just as the color does in the visual field.

Lastly, we have Arthur Bliss’ Color Symphony, which evokes the characters associated with precious gemstones. Purple is amethysts and represents pageantry and majesty; Red is rubies, wine and revelry; Blue is sapphires, water, skies and melancholy; Green is emeralds, hope, spring and triumph.”

“An added bonus,” Mr. Ger said, “will be our uniquely exciting collaboration with a local Orange County visual artist, Heidi Lanino, who will join me in conversation before the program and then paint a canvas for each work in real time in response to the music. These may be auctioned off at a later date.”

Again, “Luminosity” will be presented Saturday, March 18 at 4:00 p.m. at Mount Saint Mary College’s Aquinas Hall. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door. Call 845/913-7157 or visit www.newburghsymphony.org. Students are admitted free to Open seating.

The Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra is one of the leading cultural institutions of the Hudson River Valley. It was founded in 1995 by Dr. Woomyung Choe and its first president, George Handler, who was followed as president after 10 years by the late Fred McCurdy. In addition to its regular concerts, the Orchestra performs special engagements, such as with Moxart and summer concerts at Boscobel House and Gardens.