Charlotte Symphony is offering free learning opportunities for adults this season through Symphony 101. They will correspond to the Charlotte Symphony’s repertoire and will take place in the Levine JCC, 5007 Providence Road, and Founders Hall, 100 North Tryon Street. They’ll be led by Davidson College Symphony Orchestra Music Director Tara Keith.
An Organized Circus
Friday, October 27, 1 p.m., Gorelick Hall, Levine Jewish Community Center
Using the circus as a metaphor for the orchestra, this lecture will introduce the many “rings” that make up an orchestra. Topics covered include the development of the physical setup of the orchestra as well as introducing the timbres of the different sections of the orchestra, using some of the repertoire from Cirque Goes to the Cinema program for highlights.
Praise & Protest: Meeting the Demands of 19th Century Audiences
Thursday, November 16, 12 p.m., Founders Room, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
Friday, November 17, 1 p.m., Gorelick Hall, Levine Jewish Community Center
This lecture will focus primarily on what audiences were like during the lives of Beethoven and Brahms, looking at their social status and etiquette during concerts. Audience response to the works of
Beethoven and Brahms will also be addressed.
Baroque: The Period of “Imperfect Pearls”
Thursday, January 4, 12 p.m., Founders Room, Blumenthal Performing Arts
Friday, January 19, 1 p.m., Gorelick Hall, Levine Jewish Community Center
This lecture will focus exclusively on the creation and growth of Baroque orchestras, discussing Baroque instruments and how modern Baroque-style instruments try to recreate a “period” sound. Other topics include genres and the predecessors of the concertmaster and conductor roles.
Disability & Dynamic Music
Thursday, March 8, 12 p.m., Founders Room, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
Friday, March 9, 1 p.m., Gorelick Hall, Levine Jewish Community Center
Centered on Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, this lecture will offer a brief history of composers and performers who continued to write and perform with despite disabilities. Parallels may be drawn to the other pieces on the program: Ravel and Sibelius as two very introverted composers, with Sibelius being so chronically introverted that it “disabled” him from composing in the last several decades of his life; and Ravel and Prokofiev having very different compositional reactions to war.
An Introduction to 20th Century Musical Dialects
Friday, April 27, 1 p.m., Gorelick Hall, Levine Jewish Community Center
Thursday, May 3, 12 p.m., Founders Room, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
This lecture will use “dialect” as a metaphor for some of the new compositional approaches that some composers created and employed during the 20th century, focusing on Ligeti and Bartók, emphasizing
that much of the vocabulary was the same as preceding centuries, but the grammar was changing based on what the composer was trying to express.
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