The Columbus Symphony Access Series to Explore SCHEHERAZADE Next Month

Led by Columbus Symphony Music Director Rossen Milanov, this Access Series concert will examine the colorfully exotic tales from One Thousand and One Nights that come to life in Rimsky-Korsakov's dazzling symphonic poem, Scheherazade, and discover how one of the greatest orchestrators in music history makes the orchestra sound exquisite.

The CSO's innovative Access Series offers audiences a deeper connection with great works of classical music and the musicians of the CSO. Designed by Milanov, these budget-friendly concerts feature a single work that is examined bit-by-bit with the CSO playing a few measures at a time. After intermission, the entire piece is played without interruption, providing audiences with a new appreciation of its meaning and context beyond mere beauty.

This CSO Access Series concert event will be presented at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Thursday, May 11, at 6:30 pm. General admission tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000.

About composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov was a member of the group of composers known as "The Five." A master of orchestration, his best-known orchestral compositions-Capriccio Espagnol, the RussIan Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite, Scheherazade-are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, employing Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism.

About Scheherazade

Scheherazade is a symphonic suite based on One Thousand and One Nights (sometimes known as The Arabian Nights). This orchestral work combines two features typical of Russian music and Rimsky-Korsakov in particular-dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia as well as orientalism in general. It is considered Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular work.

About One Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish, and Egyptian folklore and literature.

Synopsis

The tales from One Thousand and One Nights proceed from the initial frame story of the ruler Shahry?r who discovers his wife's flagrant infidelity and has her executed. In his bitterness and grief, Shahry?r decides that all women are the same-untrustworthy and unfaithful-so he begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning before she has a chance to dishonor him. Eventually, the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of this tale, postpones her execution once again. And thus it continues for 1,001 nights.

www.columbussymphony.com

Photo credit: Randall L. Schieber

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