Simply the Best

Sunday    October 20  3 pm

 Simply the Best presented by the Holyoke Civic Symphony. offers the work of three beloved composers  spanning three centuries of extraordinary classical music talent and popularity among listeners.

HCS will perform Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Oboe Concert in C major, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D major.

Bernstein was a pianist, teacher, mentor, conductor, and composer of both popular musical theatre and “serious work.” Candide’s overture was a pianist, teacher, mentor, conductor, and composer and this overture has become one of the most performed works by an American composer on symphony concerts.

Mozart wrote the Oboe Concerto in C major at age 21. His early talent shines in the entire piece, and is greatly appreciated by audiences and oboists (and flutists - Mozart had transposed the piece for an amateur French flutist) with great delight. He was a prolific composer, and produced works for piano, violin, horn flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon.

Johannes Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, orchestra, voice and chorus. He is often grouped with Bach and Beethoven as one of the “three Bs.”  Symphony No. 2 in D major  was written when he was 44, and was pastoral in sound, especially as compared to the stormy Symphony in C minor that he wrote in the prior year.

The featured guest oboist is Joël Angel Roches (pictured). HCS conductor David Kidwell has invited them back to be featured in Mozart’s oboe concerto. Roches has kept up his oboe focus since he performed so beautifully during a Holyoke Civic Symphony high school concerto competition 10 years ago.  A resident of Chicopee, Roches is a native born Honduran. They are attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst pursuing a Master of Musical Arts in Oboe Performance.

There comes a time when we as people have to come together to nurture the arts in all their forms. ...music should be available to all no matter the race, social class, history, or talent. When we as a nation come together for this fight,  the populous can grow, remembering when you are at your worst,  the arts, be it what you want, is a way to heal the body, mind, and spirit.  - Joël Angel Roches