Edgewood College Chamber Orchestra

press release: The Edgewood Chamber Orchestra commences the 2019-‘20 Edgewood College Concert Series in the new McKinley Performing Arts Center. The Edgewood Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Blake Walter.

The program begins with an ode to a theatre opening, featuring Beethoven’s King Stephen Overture, Op. 117, commissioned by Emperor Francis I of Austria to celebrate the opening of a new theatre in Pesth, Hungary in 1812. The title references King Stephen I, founder of the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000 and was intended to celebrate the loyalty of Hungary to the Habsburg monarchy, and undoubtedly to the Emperor himself. Opening with an outburst of brass, the syncopated theme is a fitting opening to a new concert season in a new space.

In another ode to royalty, a suite from Handel’s Water Music is featured in the middle of the program. The 1717 work was written at the request of King George I, for a concert to be performed on the River Thames, from which the King heard the initial performance seated on a royal barge.

The concert concludes with Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 in C major, K425, (the Linz), written in a mere four days as Mozart and his wife briefly stopped in Linz, Austria on their way home to Vienna from Salzburg in 1783.

Tickets are $5.00 general admission, free with Edgewood High School or Edgewood College ID.