BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Instead of the iconic sounds of Tchaikovsky and Mozart, the Allentown Symphony Orchestra will treat its audience to something brand new.
The symphony's New Music Chamber Concert Series will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem.
- The Allentown Symphony Orchestra's chamber concert features new music by eight local composers and is presented by a string quartet
- The intimate concert is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28
- It will be held at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem.
The selected musicians featured are winners of a contest that is part of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra's (ASO) composer consortium.
One of the symphony's goals is to support up-and-coming composers and increase diversity in modern chamber music repertoire, according to Silagh White, director of education at ASO.
ASO received close to 70 submissions, but preference was given to composers who could attend rehearsals and the concert.
"What was interesting is that this is the first time our scores got picked up on a national website," White said. "That added a little bit to the opportunity for composers, and at the same time it taught us a lot about how composers write frequently for string quartets."
Among the winners are Grace Young, Ava Bloomfield, Tom Maher, Susanna Payne-Passmore, Ryan Anderson, Kirk O'Riordan and Gabriela Lena Frank.
Selections of their work will be performed that evening by ASO's Eliezer Gutman and Inna Eyzerovich on violin, Pamela Jacobson on viola and Jameson Platte on cello.
The sounds of Peru
Frank is a Latin Grammy Award winner (in the best contemporary classical music composition category) whose work often draws on her multicultural background — mainly her Peruvian roots.
In several of her pieces, she elicits the sounds of South America with instruments such as the pan flute and charango guitar.
"Gabriela Lena Frank is a hot composer right now in new music. She has been a composer residence in Philadelphia and at MIT," White said. "She's huge in the classical musical scene, so we're playing a movement of one of her string quartets."
A less expensive way to see a symphony
For the concert series, ASO teamed up with Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts to showcase the works of composers of all levels of experience while offering tickets at a reduced price.
Tickets are only $10, but free for students 21 and under.
It's a great way for audience members, who may not be familiar with classical tunes, to learn about the genre, organizers said.
"There's a big generation of millennials that come to classical music because it's in the video games and the movies that they watch. We all come to this kind of music in various ways."Silagh White, director of education at Allentown Symphony Orchestra
"When I was a kid, a tiny little tot, I got into classical music because I was watching Bugs Bunny cartoons," White said. "And I thought the music from that was really awesome and I wanted to do the music part, so now I'm a classical musician because of Bugs Bunny.
"Other people come to it for different reasons There's a big generation of millennials that come to classical music because it's in the video games and the movies that they watch. We all come to this kind of music in various ways."
What's ahead
The program for the concert will be curated and selected by ASO's composer-in-residence Chris Rogerson.
It's his last big project with the symphony — he was selected as the composer in residence, a two-year program, in 2020.
"We will be announcing our next composer in residence probably the day before the concert," White said. "We also have some other surprises when we announce our new season then."
This is the orchestra's second chamber concert (the first part in the series took place in October in the Rodale Community Room at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown).
There will be a post-concert party at Social Still in Bethlehem.
