SEATTLE YOUTH SYPMPHONY ORCHESTRA’S
2007-2008 65th Anniversary Season Announcement

Seattle, WA - The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras celebrates its 65th anniversary as it announces the 2007-2008 season. The Youth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, will be performing three concerts this season on November 18, March 2, and May 18th.  All performances will take place at Benaroya Hall, Sundays at 3:00 p.m.  Tickets for the concerts range from $8 for students and seniors to $40 for adults.
            For the 65th anniversary season the Seattle Youth Orchestra is focusing on the Romantic Tradition.  The opening concert on November 18th investigates the tradition of Russian Romanticism with the passionate and emotionally gripping “Pathetique” Symphony by Tchaikovsky, and the ardent lyricism of the Violin Concerto in E minor by Julius Conus. The violin solo will be performed by the 2007 Seattle Youth Symphony Concerto Competition winner Kouki Tanaka.  Audiences will also get to enjoy Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide Overture.
            On March 2nd the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra is joined by Seattle Symphony principal cellist Joshua Roman in a performance of William Walton’s Cello Concert, a contribution to the Romantic tradition by one of England’s greatest composers.  The concert also includes Symphony No. 3 by German Romantic Robert Schumann, The Tender Land Suite composed by Aaron Copland, and Aaron Jay Kernis’ New Era Dance.
            The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra’s final performance celebrates both the roots of Romanticism and its ultimate flowering at the turn of the 20th century.  The concert features the Overture to the opera “Leonora” by the father of German Romanticism, Ludwig van Beethoven.  Beethoven’s tradition was carried forward by the most Romantic of all Germanic composer’s Richard Strauss, whose monumental tone-poem “Death and Transfiguration” celebrates a more spiritual and existential expression of Romanticism.  The 2007-2008 season ends with a performance of Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse,” an epic farewell to the grand Romantic tradition.

Who: Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe and  featuring soloists Kouki Tanaka and Joshua Roman.
What: Seattle Youth Symphony Concerts featuring Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony, Walton’s Cello Concerto, and Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration.
When: Sundays at 3:00 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2007, Mar. 2, 2008, and May 18, 2008
Where: Benaroya Hall on 3rd and Union in Seattle, WA
Price: ranges from $8 students/seniors to $40 adults
Ticket Purchasing: At the door, online at www.syso.org, or over the phone at  
         (206) 362-2300
Repertoire:
Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.
Rossini                        Semiramide Overture
Conus                         Violin Concerto in E minor
                                                Soloist: Kouki Tanaka
                                                2007 Concerto Competition Winner
Tchaikovsky                Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74
Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 3:00 p.m.
Copland                       The Tender Land Suite
Walton                         Cello Concerto
                                                Soloist: Joshua Roman
                                                Seattle Symphony Principal Cellist
Schumann                  Symphony No. 3 “Rhenish”
Kernis                          New Era Dance
Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 3:00 p.m.
Beethoven                   Leonore Overture No. 3
Strauss                       Death and Transfiguration
Ravel                           Noble and Sentimental Waltzes
Ravel                           La Valse

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For tickets and more information please call Lidia Lesniewska at (206) 362-2300