EDMONDS — Just a month past its holiday pops concert, the busy Cascade Symphony Orchestra begins the new year with a concert Monday featuring French hornist Jeffrey Fair.
Fair, the principal horn of the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera, teaches at the University of Washington. An Oklahoma native, Fair earned his master’s degree from The Julliard School in 2000 and joined the Seattle Symphony in 2003.
Now midway through its 55th season, Cascade Symphony, under the direction of Michael Miropolsky, will tackle Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 6 in B minor,” the “Pathetique.”
Tchaikovsky’s final symphony was composed in 1893. He conducted the first performance of the symphony just nine days before his death.
Tchaikovsky wrote that it was the best thing he ever composed and that “I love it as I have never before loved one of my musical offspring.”
Opening the concert is “Iron Foundry” by Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov. The piece premiered in a concert in 1927 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Mosolov was a pioneer in modern music in Russia.
Fair will perform Camille Saint-Saens’ “Morceau de Concert” for horn and orchestra, which was composed in 1887. Like a miniature concerto, the piece begins with an allegro and a set of short variations. Following a calmer adagio, it ends with a virtuosic allegro finale.
Fair also will play W.A. Mozart’s “Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major,” which was composed in the late 1780s and also is a relatively brief piece.
In Mozart’s time, the French horn was a new instrument and different from the modern horn. Mozart wrote his horn concertos for his friend Joseph Leutgeb, one of the few horn players of the time who could actually perform the concerti.
If you go
Cascade Symphony Orchestra
An informative lecture about the program begins at 6:30 p.m. followed by the concert at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 9, Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 Fourth Ave. N. Call the box office 425-275-9595 for tickets: $27 general, $22 seniors, $15 students with ID, $10 for children.
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