Baylor Chamber Orchestra And Ballet Austin To Perform Feb. 3

by Richard Veit

The Baylor University Chamber Orchestra will present the first of its two spring semester concerts at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, in Jones Concert Hall. This 42-member ensemble performs under the direction of Stephen Heyde, Conductor-in-Residence and director of orchestral activities.
Selected by audition from members of the Baylor Symphony, the Baylor Chamber Orchestra is the premier orchestral ensemble in the School of Music. The Chamber Orchestra began in the fall of 1999 with its first performance at last year's Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention (accompanying the Baylor A Cappella Choir). They also will appear at this year's convention and perform with Ballet Austin II.
Saturday's concert will open with a presentation of the suite from Igor Stravinsky's 1920 ballet, Pulcinella. Normally encountered in its strictly orchestral guise, the Baylor performance will be seen in its original form, featuring the dancers of Ballet Austin II.
After the Stravinsky, the concert will continue with a virtuosic work for violin and orchestra by Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe, his Caprice in the Form of a Waltz on a Theme by Saint-Saëns. The soloist will be Eka Gogichashvili, assistant professor of violin.
Concluding the program will be Sergei Prokofieff's Symphony No. 1 in D Major, known as the Classical Symphony. Though dating from 1917, this work is "classical" in terms of both instrumentation and form.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.