The Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra dims the lights for its third candlelight concert, "Swinging Candlelight," at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at W.K. Kellogg Auditorium. Music director Anne Harrigan tells Cara Lieurance about the program, featuring music by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Aaron Copland and Ernest Bloch, plus a surprise for those who attend.
Strings are at the center of the concert, joined by piano, harp and one woodwind soloist. The evening opens with Gershwin's Lullaby, first written for string quartet. Next come three movements of Bloch's rarely heard Concerto Grosso No. 1 from 1925, a piece Harrigan loves.The fugue that ends the work turns its themes upside down and inside out, and Harrigan calls it brilliant and festive.
"I think sometimes people are hesitant if they don't recognize the name of a composer. But there's so much great music out there. And it's such a fantastic discovery," Harrigan says.
The concert's showpiece is Copland's Clarinet Concerto, which Copland wrote for Goodman. The soloist is Georgiy Borisov, who has been principal clarinet of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the Battle Creek Symphony and now holds that chair in Grand Rapids. Harrigan says the concerto opens with layered entrances that recall Appalachian Spring, then moves into syncopation that needs a big-band feel. This is where she expects to be "earning my keep."
"So getting everybody in a period of four days to feel the groove together in a technically very difficult piece will be so much fun," she says.
Tickets are available at battlecreeksymphony.org or by calling 269-963-1911.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
