Overview

Brett Mitchell, conductor
Conrad Tao, piano

MISSY MAZZOLI Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

Brett Mitchell conducts your Colorado Symphony in a contrasting program of works both old and new. Berlioz’s bombastic, boisterous Symphonie fantastique is one of the first to tell a complete story through pure orchestral music as he details his own personal pursuit of Harriet Smithson, the Shakespearean actress who later became his wife. Using a recurrent melodic theme to tie the five movements together, Berlioz foreshadows the Wagnerian Leitmotif in a programmatic work that shows the range of human emotions. Featured soloist Conrad Tao performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto, a colorful Gershwin-inspired work with American spirit and jazz flavors while Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) contains elements of Ravel’s impressionistic nature as it presents music in the shape of a solar system as a collection of rococo loops twist around each other within a larger orbit.