Historic Classics Highlight Opening Concert of NSPO this Sunday, Nov. 17

Special to the Sun 

Music Director Robert Lehmann conducts music of Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and

Hindemith when the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra begins its 76th season on Sunday, November 17 at Swampscott High School Auditorium.

Tickets will be available at the door or can be purchased in advance at www.nspo.org at $30, $25 for seniors and students. Children 12 and under are admitted free.

Lehmann is looking forward to conducting the program that features Felix Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s  Variations on a Rococo Theme with Boston Symphony Orchestra cellist Mickey Katz, and the powerful Mathis der Maler Symphony of German/American composer Paul Hindemith.

“Significant moments in Protestant history appear rendered though music on our fall     concert,” Lehmann remarked. “Mendelssohn’s  Reformation Symphony, his Fifth, quotes the famous Dresden Amen as it commemorates the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, the basic statement of the tenets of the Protestant faith put forth in the Lutheran Reformation.”

Lehmann added that Hindemith composed Mathis der Maler inspired by the work of artist  Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece that illustrated the Catholic and Protestant  forces that rent Germany apart in the 1500’s, as well as to call attention to the unfolding parallels with the rise of National Socialism in Hindemith’s own time, 1930’s Germany.

Soloist Mickey Katz  will highlight Tchaikovsky’s exciting  “Variations on a Rococo Theme.”  Katz is currently in his 20th year as a cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestera.  A native of Israel, he has distinguished himself as a solo performer, chamber musician, and         contemporary music specialist. He received the Presser Music Award in Boston, the Karl Zeise Prize as a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, and won first prizes at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Competition and the Rubin Academy Competition in Tel Aviv. He has been a recipient of the America Israel Cultural foundation scholarships since 1988. As soloist, he has performed with several Israeli orchestras and locally with the Boston Civic Symphony, Symphony Pro Musica, and Hudson Valley Philharmonic.

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