Lucian Rinando conducts — and Michael Avagliano is guest soloist — when the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra invokes dreams of Winter on the Basie stage, this Sunday afternoon.
Once each year, the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra‘s principal conductor Roy D. Gussman turns over the baton to associate conductor Lucian Rinando, for a concert program curated by the MSO flautist (and expert in all things having to do with the technique, history and crafting of his instrument) especially for the Red Bank audience. Here in the borough-based Orchestra’s 67th season — and in a month keynoted by Punxsatawney Phil’s dire prediction of continued winter weather — Rinando and company put forth a rather daring ode to the peculiar beauty of “Winter Dreams,” with a performance of that first symphony from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
The Russian master was a driven young guy of 26 — and “one step away from insanity,” according to his doctor — when he composed that evocation of snow-muted stillnesses and bold blasts from the steppes. For the concert on Sunday afternoon, February 8 at the Count Basie, the MSO links the Tchaikovsky work with a pair of classics by French composers, spotlighting the solo violin of Michael Avagliano.
The music director of the Central Jersey Symphony performs on the Third Violin Concerto by Camille Saint-Saens, a work teamed with one of the best known compositions by Saint-Saens pupil Gabriel Faure — the Peleas et Melisande Suite. Tickets for the 3 pm program ($35, with discounts for seniors, students and children) are available right here.