Santa Cecilia Orchestra's Opening Concert: "Celebration: St. Cecilia Feast Day" November 22, 2009

Santa Cecilia Orchestra’s 17th Season Opens November 22
With Two Symphonic Masterpieces: Respighi’s Pines Of Rome and Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel)

Santa Cecilia Orchestra, an orchestra with a special mission to serve the Latino community, will open their 17th Anniversary Season at Thorne Hall, a beautiful facility on the campus of Occidental College in Eagle Rock. Under the baton of the orchestra’s music director and conductor, Sonia Marie De Léon de Vega, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra will perform on November 22, 2009.

St. Cecilia’s Feast Day falls each year on November 22. In earlier centuries, this occasion was widely celebrated with concerts dedicated to music’s heavenly patroness. Since the orchestra takes its name from Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of music, it is with special pride that they uphold that tradition. The orchestra marks the occasion with a programmatic feast for the ears.
Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” a work in four movements with each movement visualizing a different scene from the city of Rome, Italy. “Pines of Rome” celebrates the beautiful trees of Respighi’s home using unusual rhythmic patterns that feature brass and woodwind instruments.

Pines of Rome forms one third of an informal trilogy of tone poems celebrating the Eternal City, along with Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals. All combine muscular images of modern Italy with ghosts of the grandeur of ancient Rome. Written at a time that Mussolini and fascism were ascendant, Respighi’s world, in a sense, is the opposite of Mussolini’s. While the Fascisti dreamed of a resurgent Rome, Respighi saw only phantoms; where Mussolini is possessed, Respighi is haunted. He left very specific descriptions of what he intended the music to evoke; one example: “Children are playing in the pine groves of the Villa Borghese. They dance a kind of ring-a-roses, mimicking marching soldiers and battles, shrieking cruelly like swallows at eventide, then they swarm away.” Respighi’s widow was not alone in detecting an anti-fascist fable in the music, a “travelogue of a soul caught in a parody of its own dreams.”

Marvel at Mussorgsky’s vivid paintings in sound! Mussorgsky composed "Pictures" at the peak of his career, after finishing his masterpiece opera "Boris Godunov" and the first version of "St. John's Night on Bald Mountain," both inspired by Russian literary works, legends and history. "Pictures from an Exhibition" was motivated by a memorial exhibition of the architectural drawings, stage designs and watercolors of Mussorgsky's friend Viktor Hartmann, who had died the year before.

“Pictures at an Exhibition” is a masterpiece that conveys a wealth of striking images. Orchestrated by Ravel, “Pictures” captivates the spirit of imagination embodied by the creative soul. From its famous opening Promenade to the roof-raising final Great Gate of Kiev, it’s one of the all-time brilliant orchestral showpieces – a glittering jewel-box full of spicy tunes and unforgettable images.

The concert will begin with Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso, Op. 3 No. 11 in d minor as arranged by Siloti for full orchestra.

Sonia Marie De Léon de Vega, noted symphony and opera conductor has achieved distinction as a creative and consummate musician, as a woman in a groundbreaking career role, and as a leading influence in the growing Latino culture in the United States. Her musical talents have inspired a large following in Southern California through live orchestral presentations, as well as an international audience through televised performances in the United States, Latin America and Europe. She was the first woman in history to receive a Vatican invitation to conduct a symphony orchestra at a Papal Mass.
De Leon de Vega is most closely associated with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. She is celebrated in educational circles for creating the dynamic Discovering Music program that takes orchestra members into elementary schools in underserved Latino neighborhoods to introduce over 16,000 children a year to classical music and the instruments of the orchestra. The program also provides free violin lessons to over 150 children in these communities.
The concert will take place at Occidental College’s Thorne Hall, 1600 Campus Rd., Los Angeles on November 22, 2009 at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. There will be one performance only of this program.

Tickets priced at $26, $20 and $7 (youth 17 and under) are available by calling the Santa Cecilia Orchestra office at (323) 259-3011 or logging on to scorchestra.org.