Music by Brahms, Mahler and ISU's Martha Horst on Orchestra Program

Illinois State University's Symphony Orchestra will open its 2008-2009 season at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall with compositions by Brahms and Mahler, and the world premiere of a work by Illinois State University composer Martha Horst titled "Domba."

Tickets are available at the CPA box office from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, by calling (309) 438-2535 or on line at http://www.ticketmaster.com/venue/57369/   The concert is also the opening concert for the School of Music Gold Series.  Tickets are $6 for the general public, $5 for faculty-staff and $4 for students and senior citizens.

Johannes Brahms thought a handwritten thank-you note would suffice after the University of Breslau in Germany awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1879.  The conductor of the school's orchestra, however, convinced Brahms that the proper "thank you" would be a new symphonic work.  Brahms responded to the arm twisting by creating a work comprised of student drinking songs and orchestrated it to require a particularly large collection of instruments.  The "Academic Festival Overture" has remained in the orchestral repertoire and will be on the Oct. 2 program, conducted by Director of Orchestras Glenn Block.

Master's degree student and assistant conductor Phil Rudd will conduct the orchestra's performance of Horst's "Domba," a work based on African drumming styles and rhythms. As a result, the piece calls for a large orchestra and percussion section.

Horst taught at San Francisco State, East Carolina University and University of California, Davis, (from which she has her Ph.D.) prior to joining the Illinois State faculty. Her recent honors include winning the 2005 Alea III International Composition Competition, winning the Rebecca Clarke International Composition Competition and residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, the oldest artist colony in the U.S.

The major work on the program, Mahler's "Symphony No. 1" Titan, is one of the largest and most well-known of the Mahler symphonies.  The Oct. 2 concert will feature a rarely heard performance of the work in its original five-movement version, with the rarely heard "Blumine" movement, a short movement describing Alpine meadows and flowers.  According to Block, who will conduct, Symphony No. 1 calls for an enormous orchestra with augmented brass and woodwinds.