Category Archives: program notes

Program Notes by Jane Rausch May Day festivals date from ancient times and many cultures still celebrate May 1 with dances and singing to welcome in spring. Certainly it is an appropriate day for the Holyoke Civic Symphony to present … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch It is not surprising that beautiful and powerful music born out of the great suffering and misery of Russian people over centuries has inspired Russian composers to produce masterworks that convey a sense of “The … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch As the long and busy holiday season drags on, expectant children may come to believe that the actual arrival of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and/or Christmas Day is incredibly “far, far away,” but even farther away in … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch “49 and Counting” As the Holyoke Civic Symphony looks forward to celebrating its 50th anniversary season in 2016-17, Maestro Kidwell has put together four very special concerts to make the orchestra’s 49th season distinctive and … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch Hannah Lynn Cohen, a senior at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Lee, MA, has been playing the violin for almost 14 years. She studies with Wendy Sharp, lecturer and head of chamber music at … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch and Robert Simon “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” ~Shakespeare, Richard III We have arrived in England this afternoon on our season’s concert tour around the world. Musically in the early twentieth … Continue reading →

Program Notes by Jane Rausch As the familiar song observes, “There’s no place like home for the holidays,” and this afternoon the Holyoke Civic Symphony invites its audience to stay close to home and celebrate “A Child’s Christmas in Holyoke.” … Continue reading →

PROGRAM NOTES by Jane Rausch For the music lover, a great advantage of living in the twenty-first century is the ability to hear beautiful music in the distinctive styles that have slowly evolved from pre-classic works of the sixteenth century … Continue reading →

PROGRAM NOTES by Jane Rausch There is an old saying “Home is where the heart is,” and the composers of the miniature masterpieces that the orchestra plays for you today display this association to a greater or lesser degree. In … Continue reading →

PROGRAM NOTES by Jane Rausch Just as diamonds expose their brilliant mineral composition through multiple facets, so great composers in their shorter works display their genius in an economy of space. The four miniature masterpieces the orchestra plays for you … Continue reading →