The UNL Symphony, along with University Singers, University Chorale and Varsity Chorus, will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on at 7:30 p.m. April 18, and 3 p.m. April 19, both at College View Church, 4801 Prescott Ave.
The concert is free and open to the public.
Widely recognized for its final movement, often referred to as “Ode to Joy,” the symphony remains one of the most significant works in the Western canon.
“’Beethoven’s Ninth is one of the touchstones, the cornerstones, of Western civilization,” said Tyler White, professor of composition and conducting and director of orchestras in the Glenn Korff School of Music and the conductor of the UNL Symphony. “More than any other musical work, it is seen to represent the predicament and the promise of humanity in a really universal way.”
White said that the symphony’s first three movements explore a sweeping range of human emotion.
“You could summarize the first three movements as the pain and the power and the beauty of being alive. Those first three movements leave the question open — what’s it all about?” he said. “And then the last movement provides this incredibly stirring answer that the whole world was made for joy.”
The performance will feature approximately 160 to 170 performers on stage, a significant expansion from the symphony’s typical 60 to 70 instrumentalists. The added forces come from the combined university choral ensembles, creating a large-scale collaboration that reflects the grandeur of the work.
“It’s always an incredible privilege, as well as a pleasure, dealing with this music,” White said. “This is music that demands the most of all the performers and of conductors. Beethoven was famously unkind to singers. He writes parts that are high and that stay high for long periods of time, or they are intensely dramatic.”
The instrumentalists fare no better.
“For the instrumentalists, he’s constantly engaged in stretching their capabilities and stretching what their instruments can do.”
The program will feature three guest soloists, who are all alumni of the Glenn Korff School of Music. Baritone Charles Austin returns after an international opera career. Tenor Alfonzo Cooper is assistant professor of music (voice) at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Mezzo Soprano Adrienne Dickson is adjunct faculty at Concordia University in Nebraska.
This performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony completes the cycle of the UNL Symphony performing all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies in the last seven years.
Following the Lincoln performances, the UNL Symphony and choruses will travel to Hastings on April 26 and perform at 3 p.m. in Hastings City Auditorium in collaboration with the Hastings Symphony and the Hastings College Choir, as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Hastings Symphony. White is the artistic director and conductor of the Hastings Symphony.
That concert will feature the Nebraska premiere of an expanded orchestration of the symphony by Gustav Mahler, resulting in an even larger ensemble of more than 100 instrumentalists and 200 vocalists.
For ticket information for the Hastings concert, visit https://go.unl.edu/hastings100.
