Symphony Meetup of St. Louis

UPDATE. An optional dinner has been added after the concert with the members and leadership of the orchestra and soloists at Maggie O'Brien's location in Sunset Hills, just minutes from the concert location. Please complete or revise your RSVP to answer the question whether or not you will join us for dinner. Please join us if you can. The orchestra has gone to great lengths in hopes of joining us. Thank you.

Let's enjoy an afternoon of expressive contrasts and timeless beauty with the University City Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Leon Burke.

This is a FREE program (but tickets are required, see below) inside the beautiful Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in historic downtown Kirkwood. Plenty of free parking in the adjacent lot if you come early.

This inspired musical program bridges classical elegance and jazz innovation in this incredible range of pieces:

• It opens with Mozart’s radiant Piano Concerto No. 21, performed by Junhong Jiang, winner of the Artist Presentation Society competition.
• Bartók’s poignant Concerto for Viola follows, featuring Marcello Jimenez of Paraguay in one of the composer’s most moving works.
• The concert concludes with legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker’s iconic Bird with Strings, featuring St. Louis's premier saxophonist Kendrick Smith in a lush fusion of jazz and orchestral sound.

Violist Marcelo Jiménez of Paraguay will be the soloist Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra in his debut with the UCSO. He is the Principal Viola for the Asunción City Symphony Orchestra Paraguay, an orchestra for which Maestro Burke guest conducts annually.

The St. Louis Philharmonic has exclusively invited our Symphony Meetup to attend a working rehearsal for their upcoming concert. This will be a unique opportunity to hear from the leadership of the orchestra and experience the rehearsal process for a number of pieces planned in that concert.

This rehearsal, on a Wednesday evening, February 18, will be at the Purser Center at Logan University. (The actual concert performance is scheduled at Chaminade the following Friday, February 27. That is a separate Meetup event.) You do NOT need to have a ticket to the actual concert to attend this rehearsal and presentation. Obviously, I hope you can support the Philharmonic and attend the actual concert as well.

We'll meet in the lobby of the Purser Center before 6:30. We'll move as a group into the auditorium away from the arriving musicians. Marilyn Humiston, President of the StL Philharmonic, will give a brief presentation about the orchestra and insights into this rehearsal process.

Starting at 7:30, Maestro Darwin Aquino will lead the orchestra through rehearsal and preparation of the pieces scheduled for the upcoming concert. Of special interest for us to observe, will be the process of the orchestra rehearsing a piece without the soloist. (Hannah Ji, the violin soloist for the concert, will not participate in the rehearsal.)

We are invited to stay until the orchestra's break at 9:00pm. At that time we need to take our leave and they will continue later into the night. This is a 100% working rehearsal, not a performance. So, we will hear what we hear based on the orchestra's needs. It should be a learning experience for us.

Please RSVP and keep your response current. This is a very special invitation and I urgently ask you to try to take advantage of it.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Hannah Ji, Assistant Concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, joins maestro Darwin Aquino and the full St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra in a passionate performance highlighting 'Romance and Revenge.' This concert brings a world class violin soloist together with our big Philharmonic that is considered to be the 'the finest amateur orchestra in the world.'

SEATING / PARKING / DINNER
We'll have great seats together at the Skip Viragh performance center on the campus at Chaminade in Frontenac. There is free parking on campus. You can join us for an optional dinner nearby at the lovely Tuscan Italian Brio restaurant before the concert. Be sure to answer the dinner question with your RSVP.