orchestra concert opener suggestions welcome

[Matt Good]

Outside of the classic Wagner Overtures and Brahms: Academic Overture

Sibelius: Finlandia
Shostakovich: Festive Overture
Dvorak: Carnival Overture

Less Traditional:
Berlioz: Waverly Overture
Nielsen: Helios Overture

I'm always impartial to Smetana: Bartered Bride and to the Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila simply because I can get a cup of coffee during the rehearsal and show up to the concert at 8pm.

[imperialbari]

Why? You programming stuff now for IRIS?

Maximizing tuba employment in Eroica.

Klaus (no mentioning of Beethoven at all)

[Roger Fjeldet]

...Or try a Norwgian piece (not too many of them);
Johan Svendsen - Norwegian Carnival
Roger

[The Jackson]

How about Crown Imperial?

[ppalan]

How about Candide Overture by Bernstein, or Rusllan and Ludmilla?

[OldsRecording]

Vaughan Williams "The Wasps" Overture.

[Mark]

Les Preludes
Fanfare form La Peri
Fanfare for the Common Man
And new to me but a lot of fun, one of Carlos Surinach's Overtures

[Rick Oakes]

Delibes: Procession of Bacchus from "Sylvia"

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture

[GC]

Overture to The School For Scandal, by Samuel Barber.

[ZNC Dandy]

Walton: Portsmouth Point Overture
Joplin: Overture to "Treemonisha"
Bach/Schoenberg: Any of the orchestrated organ works.
Nielsen: Rhapsodic Overture "Imaginary Journey to the Faeroe Islands"
Glinka: Overture to "A Life for the Tsar"
Suk: Towards a New Life

[imperialbari]

Something that doesn't often get played these days:

Dukas- The Sorcerer's Apprentice ...If only two bassoonists are available, does the tuba traditionally cover the sarrusophone part?

No sarrusophone according to this page, but contrabassoon. Needs 3 clarinetists and 4 in the trumpet/cornet section.

I took a look at the bassoon parts. Some passages would be fun to play on one or two euphoniums. Potentially with a tuba on the contrabassoon part, but I didn’t look for passages involving all 3.

Klaus

[Mitch]

We've gotten accustomed to programming the way it has become, i.e.:

Overture
Concerto/slow piece
-intermission-
symphony

It's become formulaic to the point it's cliche.

If you go far enough back, however, the conventions were upside down from what we consider the norm. Programs started instead with the symphony/large piece and got lighter from there.

I conducted a program years ago that was:

Brahms 2 (yes, the symphony first)
-intermission-
Copland- Letter from Home (great piece, great story if you're not familiar - written from the point of view of a soldier in the foxhole reading a letter from back home. Instead of writing a bombastic world-at-war piece, it is instead nostalgic, poignant, tender and simple)
Barber - Canzonetta for Oboe and Strings
Bernstein - Overture to Candide

I cannot begin to describe the reception the program got. I think some of it was as much because it wasn't the "formula." Add in there a couple great and not-often-performed pieces and that added to the interest. I also believe it was because when starting "heavy" and finishing "light," it's less "taxing" on the audience. After all, if they've already sat through ca. 60-90 minutes, and then there's ANOTHER 45 to come, oy. Besides, putting the big haul first provides the option of having the "freshest horses." But that all depends. I've seen a number of performances from all levels of groups where I think everyone would've benefited from putting the big stuff first, including the audience.

Just my $.02, but I highly recommend it. I'm a complete convert to the "upside down" program.

[tubapress]

How about:

Walton: Prelude to Richard III

Kabalevsky: Colas Breugnon Overture

Weber: Oberon Overture

Sibelius: Finlandia

Berlioz: Rakoczy March

Schuman: American Festival Overture

[Chuck Jackson]

Malcolm Arnold- Peterloo Overture

[Mojo workin']

Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso, La Valse

Mussourgsky - Coronation Scene from Boris Godunov

Verdi - Nabucco, La Forza del Destino

[jeopardymaster]

John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Gershwin - Cuban Overture
Revueltas - Sensemaya
Ron Nelson - Rocky Point Holiday or Savannah River Holiday
most any Rossini overture - La Gazza Ladra, Semiramide, Barber of Seville, Italian in Algiers, etc.

One of my dream programs I've never seen done would be Finlandia, Sibelius 1 and Sibelius 2, back to back to back. And then a visit to the sauna, followed by a quick naked roll in the snow.