Soprano Kimberly Giordano, a regional opera star, performs Monday evening in Edmonds with the Cascade Symphony Orchestra.
Giordano will be featured in the orchestra’s presentation of “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss.
These songs premiered in London less than a year after Strauss’ death in 1949.
Early in his career the German composer developed his signature style and it did not veer much. His final four compositions could have been composed 60 years earlier. Biographers have said that Strauss composed these songs with a sense of peace, wistfulness and hope for the journey after death. The songs cover the glory of spring, the pensive nature of autumn, the passage into “sleep” and the peace of sunset.
Giordano has performed this year and in past seasons with Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Portland Concert Opera, Seattle Chamber Singers, Northwest Sinfonietta, Spectrum Dance Ensemble, Kirkland Choral Society, Philharmonia Northwest, Thalia Symphony and Whatcom Symphony. She has sung at Carnegie Hall in New York. Giordano earned her master’s degree in music from the University of Washington. She has sung the National Anthem at Seattle Mariners games since 2013.
This CSO concert also includes Chabrier’s “Fete Polonaise” and Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise.”
The other headliner on the program is Camille Saint-Saens’ Symphony No. 3 in C minor, the “Organ Symphony.”
This worked was commissioned and debuted by the Royal Philharmonic Society, and the composer conducted the premier 120 years ago in London.
The symphony is perhaps better described as a symphony with organ because the instrument is featured in only two of the four movements. At first the organ seems only to serve to support the orchestra with deep pedal tones. The second entry of the organ, however, is triumphant.
Cascade Symphony Orchestra’s “Organ Symphony” concert begins at 7:30 p.m. May 9 at Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 Fourth Ave. N., Edmonds. The pre-concert lecture is at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $27 for general admission, $22 for seniors, $15 for students and $10 for children. Call 425-275-9595.
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