Here's the list of songs we played....
Finale to Symphony 2 in C Major by Tchaikovsky
This one was very easy, and a lot of fun to play! This piece was performed as a collaboration with another orchestra from a different city. They were really cool to meet! I loved this one part where the 2nd Violins (Read: Libby's Section) had pizzicato offbeats, and they totally aced it!
Violin Concerto by Accolay
Every year we have the Concerto Competition, and this year the winner was a violinist and he played this one. It's a pretty good song, and he was very skilled. It's not really my taste in music, but like I said, the soloist was very good!
Turkish Fragments by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
Now this was a terrific piece, and definitely one of my new favorites! The first movement, aptly named 'Caravan', really does sound like a Caravan lumbering through the desert. The second movement, 'At Rest', has it all. Beautiful melodies, terrific percussion, and even a really good Piccolo part! I was thrilled and really scared at the same time to play it, because it's so prominent!
On the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin
This piece is really something special and amazing. This song is about the Russians discovering Central Asia back in the 1800's. At first, a very Russian melody plays, and then a Central Asian melody plays. But they're apart, so it shows that the two cultures don't quite understand each other yet. Later in the song, the two are played together, and this represents the reconciliation of the two cultures. The music is very beautiful, and has a magnificent swell and decrescendo. Love it.
Symphonic Pictures of Turkmenistan by Nury Halmamedov
Our performance today was actually the U.S. premier of this piece! I really love this. It was written when the composer was only 23, and there are so many different moods and sounds that it's really quite an experience. I'd write a lot more, but I'm really tired. :) I played Flute/Piccolo for about 4 hours straight today and my shoulders and wrists feel like jelly. XD When our CD comes out in a few months, I think I'll to a full feature of it in a post. It's just not enough to talk about this music! You have to hear it to really get it.
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