‘Spring Delights’ showers listeners with musical charm

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‘Spring Delights’ showers listeners with musical charm
MSO concert is full of quiet beauty, fun exuberance

Jackson, Mississippi — The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra welcomes spring with an intimate concert of favorites, including music from beloved composers such as Aaron Copland and Giacomo Puccini, 7:30 p.m. March 11 at St. James Episcopal Church in Jackson.

Spring Delights,” MSO’s third chamber concert of the season, opens on a stirring note with Copland’s poignant Quiet City, his ode to New York, featuring MSO musicians Darcie Bishop and Linda Naef in trumpet and English horn solos, respectively. Described as a “gold mine of wonderful themes and melodies,” the piece works particularly well in a setting where its subtleties can shine.

Percy Grainger’s jaunty Irish reel Molly on the Shore picks up the pace, and Richard Wagner’s blissful symphonic poem Siegfried Idyll is as touching as they come. Puccini’s The Chrysanthemums has all the beauty, searing passion, melody and elegance of the master’s music (but not operatic, for once). Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 shares all the fresh charm of its composer’s youth (he was 19 at the time), as well as the rich, daring, modern spirit of a master in the making.

“The overall aim is to always put together a delightful, thoroughly enjoyable program,” said Maestro Crafton Beck. With the huge body of great repertoire written for chamber orchestras, “There is just so, so much to choose from. It’s like a kid in a candy store.”

Jenny Mann, MSO president and executive director says listeners are in store for a sweet treat. “This is a joyful program in a lot of respects, and of course spring is a time of rebirth and excitement. Our maestro has chosen music that goes right along with that and will definitely get people into the anticipation and delight of the season.”

Tickets for the “Spring Delights” chamber concert are $25 general admission and $5 for students kindergarten through college. Advance tickets may be purchased online at msorchestra.com.

What: Spring Delights, chamber concert
Who: Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 11, 2023
Where: St. James Episcopal Church   3921 Oakridge Drive, Jackson