DePauw Orchestra to play 'Pictures at an Exhibition' by Mussorgsky Monday

The DePauw University Orchestra, led by Professor Orcenith Smith, continues to demonstrate its commitment to learning exquisite and challenging repertoire, across all musical styles and periods, as students prepare Maurice Ravel's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at Exhibition" for the ensemble's annual Thanksgiving week concert.

The performance will be given Monday, Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium of the Green Center for the Performing Arts.

The concert will open with performances of two unique opera overtures. First, audience members will hear a sneak peak of the DePauw Opera's spring production of Mozart's "La Finta Giardiniera" -- a work the composer completed when he was just 18. The orchestra will then perform the dramatic overture to "Fidelio," Beethoven's only opera.

The highlight of the evening will be Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." Originally written for solo piano in 1874, the 10-movement suite has become one of the most widely performed and treasured pieces in all of symphonic literature. The Russian was moved to compose the piece following the death of his friend Viktor Hartmann, the artist whose paintings inspired the stimulating musical ideas and themes embedded throughout the work.

Over time, "Pictures," in turn inspired several orchestral arrangements by different composers, the most successful of which is by French composer Maurice Ravel.

"Thanksgiving begins an unusually emotional time of the year as friends and families gather for special events," said Smith, regarding the program for Monday's concert. "Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' is filled with emotional references to memories of the composer's dear friend Victor Hartmann. The orchestra's Thanksgiving week concerts tend toward illuminating works that draw on or are inspired by this type of deep sense of emotional connectedness."

General admission tickets to DePauw Orchestra concerts are $3. Tickets for all students, seniors and children are free thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green.

To purchase tickets, visit www.depauw.edu/music/tickets or stop by or call the box office at 658-4827.