Baylor Symphony Performs Concert on March 23

by Richard Veit

The Baylor University Symphony Orchestra will present the first of its two spring concerts at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, in Jones Concert Hall. The 73-member Baylor Symphony is led by Stephen Heyde, director of orchestral activities and Conductor-in-Residence.
The program will open with the Prelude to Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. This popular work, Wagner's only comic opera, was written in 1867. The Prelude will be directed by guest conductor Alexander E. Jiménez, a Baylor graduate who now serves as assistant music director of the Florida State University Symphony and as principal timpanist of the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra. While he was at Baylor, Jiménez studied conducting with Michael Haithcock and percussion with Larry Vanlandingham.
Next the Baylor Symphony will perform the Trombone Concerto of Jim Pugh, a composition that dates from 1992. Pugh, one of the nation's most prominent trombonists in pop/jazz recordings and Hollywood films, wrote the Trombone Concerto for conductor Robin Fountain and the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra. The soloist in the Waco concert will be David Jackson, assistant professor of trombone at Baylor.
Following intermission, the Baylor Symphony will present the Symphony No. 2 of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Premiered in 1902, it stands as Sibelius's most popular symphonic work--and one of the most often played and recorded of all orchestral compositions from the romantic period.
This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.