Incidental music — the background music associated with a play, television or radio program, film or other types of entertainment, such as video games — will provide the theme for Sunday’s Iola Area Symphony Orchestra.
The curtain rises for “Incidentally” at 3 p.m. at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. Tickets will be sold at the door for $3 for adults. Students and children will be admitted free of charge.
The program will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s iconic “Wedding March,” heard at countless weddings through history, but also as one of the more noteworthy pieces of incidental music to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Beethoven’s “Egmont” is a set of musical pieces that accompany a play of the same name, which follows the life and heroism of the Count of Egmont. The Count was a 16th-century Dutch nobleman, whose execution eventually sparked outrage that led to the independence of the Netherlands. Beethoven penned the music at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, when the French Empire extended its domination over most of Europe.
Georges Bizet’s “Prelude” from “L’Ariesienne Suite No. 1” (translated as “The Girl from Arles”) originally received poor reviews, but has survived and flourished. “Prelude” consists of 27 numbers, some only a few bars, and many with folk-like themes.
The first half concludes with a medley of songs set to “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the 2003 adventure film starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.
The second half of the program features “Masquerade” by Aram Khachaturian, set to Mikhail Lermontov’s play of the same name. Its famous waltz theme led Khachaturian to extract five movements to create a symphonic suite.
The concert concludes with Franz Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture. The music was composed for an 1823 play of the same name. The play was apparently a failure, but the music remains popular today.
The 62-piece orchestra features students from Iola High School’s strings program under the instruction of Greta Adams.
The concert features musicians from Iola, Altamont, Buffalo, Fort Scott, Overland Park, Chanute, Pleasanton, LaHarpe, Uniontown, Mound City and Nevada, Mo.
Conducting once again is Dr. Gregory E. Turner.
This is Turner’s 17th year with the Iola Area Symphony Orchestra. He is chairman of communications and fine arts at Fort Scott Community College.
Iola symphony celebrates ‘incidental’ pieces
