March 30, 2010 Media contact: Kara Gavin
E-mail: kegavin@umich.edu
Phone: 734-764-2220

U-M Life Sciences Orchestra's 10th season ends April 25 with free concert

Performance will feature works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Corigliano

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U-M Life Sciences Orchestra Web site

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra will conclude its tenth season of blending art and science with a free concert of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Corigliano. 

On Sunday, April 25 beginning at 2 p.m., the LSO will take the stage of Hill Auditorium on the U-M campus under the baton of music director Robert Boardman, and assistant conductor Avlana Eisenberg.

All are welcome to attend and no tickets are required for the concert, which will begin with remarks by Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D, CEO of the U-M Health System and U-M executive vice president for medical affairs.

The concert will begin with “Voyage”, a piece for strings written in 1976 by American composer John Corigliano. Described as sumptuous and consoling, this piece is a transcription of his earlier a capella version of the same piece from 1971, and is based upon the French poet Charles Baudelaire's famous “L'Invitation Au Voyage.”

This will be followed by the first movement of Ludwig von Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, nicknamed the “Emperor” concerto after Rudolf von Habsburg-Lothringen, wealthy patron and student of Beethoven. The piano soloist will be Cathy Twu, winner of the LSO’s seventh Concerto Competition. Eisenberg will conduct.

The second half will feature one of the most famous symphonies, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, written in 1888. An audience favorite, the symphony journeys melodically from grief through struggle, and finally towards triumph and ecstasy.

For more information on the concert or the LSO, visit www.umich.edu/~lsorch, send e-mail to orchestra@umich.edu, or call (734) 936-ARTS.

The LSO is part of the Gifts of Art program, which brings the world of art and music to the U-M Health System. The orchestra was founded in the spirit of the U-M effort to encourage collaboration, community and creativity beyond the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines in the basic sciences, health sciences, health care, engineering, social science and the humanities.

The orchestra is made up of members of U-M’s medical, health and life science community, including faculty, staff, students, family members and alumni. It gives its members an outlet for their musical talents and a chance to interact with one another across academic disciplines and professions. Founded by students and staff from the U-M Health System, the orchestra made its concert debut in January 2001. Boardman is a doctoral student, and Eisenbert a master’s student, in the U-M School of Music, Theatre and Dance’s orchestral conducting program.

Written by Kara Gavin