Special events

With a career spanning almost four decades as a soloist, conductor, and Music Director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated violinists of his era. For the Festival’s Gala, he and his 1713 Stradivarius will tackle an all-time favorite, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major. It’s a piece written in haste for a violinist with whom the composer greatly admired, and it soon became a cornerstone of the violin repertory. One of the reasons, its loose, lyrical structure—interplaying in narrative between solo violin and the orchestra’s rhythmic themes—which allows the soloist to present it in their own voice.

Festival faculty and musicians team up with Wood River High School music educators and students for an ensemble performance of fun, eclectic, Latin-inspired music as part of the 4th annual National Hispanic Heritage Month festivities.

If classical music had a “rock opera,” it would almost certainly be Carmina Burana. Unpretentious and endlessly entertaining, this rollicking choral tour de force is based on a set of 24 poems written back in the 13th Century by the “Goliards,” a group of defrocked monks and vagabond students. The lyrics reflect their lusty lifestyles, with odes to fate and fortune, biting satires of religious themes, and nods to gluttony, carnal pleasures, and the joys of the tavern. When the composer Carl Orff discovered the collection, he set about composing music to match its exuberant character. It might be the only composition that would have both Pete Townshend and Giacomo Puccini tapping their feet!