Name: Home for the Holidays
Start: 2024-12-14T19:30:00
Location: Hope College

Join the Holland Symphony Orchestra on a captivating musical journey through their upcoming concert series. From the festive 'Home for the Holidays' to the culturally rich 'Scottish Influence' and the emotive 'Romantic Rachmaninoff,' each event offers a unique exploration of orchestral brilliance. Under the guidance of Music Director and Conductor Johannes Müller Stosch, experience the fusion of tradition and innovation through masterful performances and engaging pre-concert talks. Whether inspired by the landscapes of Scotland or the lush Romanticism of Rachmaninoff, these concerts promise to leave audiences spellbound and yearning for more.

A Symphony of Seasons: Enchanting Concerts with Holland Symphony Orchestra

Johannes Müller Stosch

Holland Symphony Orchestra

Join violinist Amanda Dykhouse, cellist Lee Copenhaver, and pianist Allison Shinnick Keep in a concert presenting two masterpieces for piano trio.  Beethoven’s well-known “Ghost” trio opens and closes with energetically joyful movements surrounding a hauntingly beautiful slow movement.  Fauré’s elegant trio is full of warm melodies, rich harmonies, and virtuosic piano writing.

HSO Piano Trio

Harderwyk Ministries

Second Reformed Church

William Grant Still wrote more than 150 compositions, merging musical aspects of his African American heritage with traditional European classical forms. Originally composed for solo piano, Summerland (1937) is a short, intensely expressive elegy — dreamy and atmospheric, suggesting the summer of its title, with hints of the blues and a nod to his fellow composer Debussy. Motivated by the poems of Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), Debussy’s 1889 Petite Suite (Small Suite) was originally composed for piano duet and later orchestrated by his colleague Henri Büsser. The four movements of this whimsical tone poem paint musical pictures of 18th-century aristocrats on country outings, a romantic boat ride at dusk on a dark lake, a playful menuetto, and a sparkling ballet.  Mahler’s fourth symphony is a contrapuntal, folk-tune inspired musical journey from experience to innocence, from complexity to simplicity, and from earthly life to heaven, complete with tender string passages, brass chorales, and lilting soprano lines. Klaus Simon’s 2007 chamber arrangement retains Mahler’s unmistakable orchestral sound in a way that enables chamber orchestras to perform this intimate and tender symphony.

Classics III: Dreams of Heaven & Earth

West Ottawa High School Performing Arts Center

After studying piano and composition with Florence Price in Chicago, Margaret Bonds composed her variations in the wake of the 1963 firebombing of Birmingham, Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church. She describes them as “a group of freestyle variations based on the Negro Spiritual theme; I want Jesus to Walk with Me. The treatment suggests the manner in which Bach constructed his partitas – a bold statement of the theme, followed by variations of the theme.” A profound lyricist and yearning optimist, Austrian composer Joseph Marx considered himself a musical poet of happiness.  HSO Music Director Johannes Müller Stosch describes his 1919 Romantic Piano Concerto as “the Austrian counterpart of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto, with lush romantic melodies, harmonies, and plenty of technical fireworks for the soloist.”  The piece was resurrected and made popular by famed pianist Jorge Bolet, is a rarely performed gem melding orchestra with piano in a duet of energy and radiant lyricism.

Classics IV: Romantic Connections

Johannes Müller Stosch, Music Director and Conductor

Home for the Holidays

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