Symphony Orchestra Concert Opens Music's Gold Series

Date: 9/19/06
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Of the hundreds of School of Music performances presented annually on the Illinois State University campus, 10 are chosen for their popularity and uniqueness to be package as Gold Series events.

The first concert in the Gold Series this year will be a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 by the ISU Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, Sept. 28, conducted by guest conductor Andrea Colombini from Lucca, Italy.

Tickets to the 8 p.m. performance in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall are $10 for the general public, $8 for faculty-staff and $7 for students and senior citizens.

Colombini is artistic director of the Caledonian Academy of Tuscany and the "Puccini e la sua Lucca" International Festival. A graduate of Cambridge University, he created the festival to honor Lucca, the native town of Giacomo Puccini. Colombini also was artistic director of the Waves of Music Festival in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this past April.

The Gold Series concert also will include orchestra performances of the overture to Verdi's four-act opera, "Nabucco," "Phenomenon" by Narong Prangcharoen and Respighi's "Fountains of Rome."

Professor Glenn Block is director of Orchestras and conductor of the ISU Symphony Orchestra.