Baylor Chamber Orchestra To Play On Nov. 2

by Richard Veit

The Baylor University Chamber Orchestra will present its annual fall concert at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, in Jones Concert Hall.
Under the direction of Stephen Heyde, Baylor Conductor-in-Residence and director of orchestral activities, the Chamber Orchestra performs the incomparably rich literature of music for small orchestra. This 32-member ensemble is comprised of some of the university's finest instrumentalists.
The concert will open with Rounds for String Orchestra by American composer David Diamond. This piece, generally regarded as the composer's most popular work, was written during the last months of World War II and premiered in Minneapolis on Nov. 24, 1944.
Guest conductor Michael Haithcock, professor of conducting and director of bands, will lead the Baylor Chamber Orchestra in the evening's concluding work. Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485, dates from the year 1816. According to musicologist Brian Newbould, "No Schubert symphony stands closer to its 18th-century forebears than the Fifth. Classical restraint prevails, and Schubert achieves a winsome lightness of touch. There is a formal clarity which, hand-in-hand with melodic purity, seems to be reaching out towards Mozartian ideals."
This concert is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.