LSO family concert, BCO mini-chamber concert Saturday
By Peter Alexander Jan. 16 at 9:35 p.m.
The Longmont Symphony Orchestra will introduce local families to musical animals including a bouncing kangaroo and a brilliant bat Saturday (4 p.m. Jan. 20) when they present the Wild Symphony by Dan Brown.
Yes, that’s the Dan Brown who wrote The da Vinci Code and other New York Times best-selling thrillers. The performance, under the direction of Elliot Moore, will feature Longmont native vocalist and attorney Cameron Grant as narrator. Wild Symphony has an accompanying children’s book, with colorful illustrations by Susan Batori.
The son of a math teacher and a church organist, Brown learned piano as a child and composed music before he wrote books. He says that he wrote the book to share his love of music with children. Each of the animals in the orchestra conducted by “Maestro Mouse” is associated with an instrument, and together they tell a story that includes portraits of the different animals and anagram puzzles on each page of the book. Among the 20 animals in the score are clumsy kittens, an anxious ostrich, dancing boars and busy beetles.
A graduate of Niwot High School, Grant studied singing at Colorado College and sang with the Aspen Opera Theater, Colorado Symphony and Colorado Music Festival. After getting a law degree, he returned to Longmont where he practices in the field of real estate law.
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Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore conductor,
with Cameron Grant, narrator
- Dan Brown: Wild Symphony
4 p.m. Saturday, Jan 20
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present pianist Adam Żukiewicz, associate professor of piano at the University of Northern Colorado, in the second of their Mini-Chamber concerts of the 2023–24 season.
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Titled “Adam Żukiewicz and Friends,” the concert will feature Żukiewicz playing quartets for piano and strings by Mozart and Brahms with members of the BCO, as well as Bartók’s popular Romanian Dances in their arrangement for piano and violin. The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 20) at the Boulder Seventh-Day Adventist Church. (See below for tickets.)
A native of Poland, Żukiewicz has studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto, where he also served on the faculty. He won first prize both the 2011 Canada Trust Music Competition and the 2012 Shean Piano Competition in Canada, and was a medalist at several other contests. Since 2018 he has been a judge for the Steinway Piano Competition.
Mozart’s Piano Quartet in the turbulent key of G minor, one of the earliest works for that ensemble, was commissioned by the Viennese publisher Hoffmeister for sale to amateurs. Believing the work Mozart wrote was too difficult for amateur players, Hoffmeister canceled the rest of the order. Nevertheless, Mozart wrote another piano quartet several months later.
When Brahms wrote his Piano Quartet in G minor nearly 100 years after Mozart’s Quartet in the same key, the quartet for piano and strings was a more established genre, even if not as common as string quartets and piano trios. The quartet is best known for its rousing “Rondo alla Zingarese” (Gypsy rondo) finale.
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Boulder Chamber Orchestra Mini-chamber 2: Adam Żukiewicz and Friends
Members of the Boulder Chamber Orchestra with Adam Żukiewicz, piano
- Mozart: Quartet in G minor for piano and strings, K478
- Brahms: Quartet in G minor for piano and strings, op. 25
- Bartók: Romanian Dances for piano and violin
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20
Boulder Adventist Church
Sharps & Flatirons 