TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR MAY 19 SHEPHERDSTOWN ORCHESTRA CONCERT
The Friends of Music will present the final concert of their 2017-2018 season in Shepherdstown on Saturday, May 19.
The concert, by the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m. Entitled “Czech it 
Out,” it will highlight the orchestra’s woodwind section and feature two works by prominent Czech composers: the “Mládí” Suite (Youth Suite) for Wind Instruments by Leoš Janacek (1854-1928) and the Serenade for Winds in D minor by Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904). Also on the program will be the “Petite Symphonie,” Op. 216, by French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893).
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before May 6). Tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org; or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443); or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct. Gaylin said the folk elements of Dvořák’s Senenade have a freshness that makes the composer a perennial favorite in America. He said the Czech/Bohemian roots of Janacek’s Suite give that work a more primitive yet equally colorful quality. In contrast, Gounod’s Petite Symphonie constitutes a Romantic, fond homage to the classical symphony.
The Friends of Music is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence. The Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra was established by the Friends in 2007. Gaylin was named Music Director in 2012. He also serves as the Music Director of Baltimore’s Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and is an Artist in Residence at New Jersey’s Stockton University.
This year’s Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Concerts are being supported by a grant from the WV Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.
