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KSC Chamber Orchestra's 'Shadows And Light'

KEENE, N.H., 11/8/06 - Keene State College’s Chamber Orchestra will perform “Shadows and Light” on Wednesday, November 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Theatre of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for KSC students, senior citizens, and youth age 17 or younger. Call the box office at 603-358-2168.

KSC artist-in-residence Don Baldini directs the 40-member orchestra, which will perform darker favorites “Night on Bald Mountain” and “Danse Macabre,” balanced out with lighter pieces by Verdi and Copland opening and closing the concert.

Giuseppe Verdi’s beloved Overture from Nabucco sets a simple, harmonious tone with its flowing, bright orchestration. Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Danse Macabre” was based on a poem about an old superstition involving skeletons rising from their graves to dance with Death on Halloween. It has been featured in many other worldly popular culture entertainment, including cartoons and an episode of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” has also been integrated into modern entertainment, most notably in Disney’s Fantasia. Mussorgsky originally wrote it as a distinctly Russian musical setting to a poem in which a raucous witches’ Sabbath is eventually broken up by daybreak.

As the days are shorter and nights are longer during this part of the year, “Danse Macabre” and “Night on Bald Mountain” were dramatic, fitting choices to Baldini. “These two pieces celebrate the darker side of classical music and of the year,” Baldini said, “But they’re also a lot of fun for students to play and for audiences to experience live in concert.”

Aaron Copland’s “Variations on a Shaker Melody” will conclude the performance with musically uplifting and inspiring melodies based on Shaker hymns, completing the lighter contrast to the dark.

The KSC Chamber Orchestra is composed primarily of KSC students and includes some community members. Baldini also conducts the KSC Jazz Ensemble, which will perform on Wednesday, December 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Redfern Arts Center. The Jazz Ensemble concert will revolve around names; pieces will include “Frankie & Johnny,” “Sweet Lorraine,” and the theme from Rocky, to name just a few.

Baldini came to Keene State after a professional career as a studio musician in Los Angeles. He appeared for 13 years with the Tonight Show Orchestra and toured with Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee, and the Harry James and Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin bands. He can be heard on the soundtracks of The Little Mermaid and St. Elsewhere and broadcasts at Disney World and the Epcot Center.

He currently performs with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Dartmouth Symphony, Opera North, the Keene Chamber Orchestra, and several local chamber music and jazz groups. With the Cincinnati Symphony, Baldini recently recorded the music of Nelson Riddle for a CD released on the Telarc label.

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