Gulf Coast Symphony opens its Classical Access Concerts

Maestro Andrew Kurtz The Gulf Coast Symphony presents the first of its Classical Access Concerts Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Santini Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Bishop Verot High School.

The concert features Dmitri Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 10" in E minor (Opus 93).

The work was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 Dec., 1953, following the death of Stalin in March that year. It is not clear when it was written: according to the composer's letters composition was between July and October 1953, but Tatiana Nikolayeva has stated it was completed in 1951.

In content and structure, the "10th Symphony" is perhaps the finest example of Shostakovich's ingenious synthesis of allusions to the symphonic tradition on the one hand, and encoded references to his own particular time and place on the other. It has four movements: the first, and indeed the longest, a slow movement in rough sonata form; the second a fast scherzo with syncopated rhythms and endlessly furious semiquaver passages; the third a moderate dance-like suite of Mahlerian Nachtmusik or Nocturne, which is how Shostakovich called it; and the fourth a slow andante (again heavily influenced by Mahler) that suddenly changes into a fast finale that has the pace of a doom-laden Gopak.

For tickets or information, call 277-1700 or go to www.gulfcoastsymphony.org.