NSS’ Season Ending Concert to Feature Performances of Holst’s “Planets” in Three Cities — Redding, Chico, and Red Bluff
The North State Symphony will complete its 2007-08 season with The Final Frontier at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 19 in Redding’s Cascade Theatre; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 20 in CSU, Chico’s Laxson Auditorium; and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 20 in Red Bluff’s State Theatre.
 
The Final Frontier will feature Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” Claude Debussy’s “Nocturnes,” Arutunian’s “Trumpet Concerto,” and Dimitri Kabalevsky’s “Violin Concerto.” The concert will shine a spotlight on trumpet player Ayako Nakamura and violinist Chelsea Morden, winners of the 2007 Young Artist Auditions competition.
 
The majority of the concert will focus on “The Planets,” one of the most popular pieces in the orchestral world. Each of the movements of “The Planets,” such as “Mars, the Bringer of War” and “Neptune, the Mystic,” describes one of the orbiting spheres according to its role in the zodiac.
 
“The music of ‘The Planets’ is so descriptive and varied, as Holst uses fantastic effects to show the different worlds,” NSS Music Director Kyle Wiley Pickett said.
 
Holst based the suite on Greek philosophy about the idea that vast objects spinning in space create a humming sound or the “Music of the Spheres.”
 
Wiley Pickett’s first encounter with Holst’s vision inspired him to become a composer.
 
“I remember sitting in an orchestra the first time I played the piece, wishing that I could be playing all the parts — not just the flute part,” Wiley Pickett said. “I realized that the closet I could get to that was to conduct the work.”
 
Wiley Pickett will also conduct the symphony through Debussy’s “Nocturnes: Clouds, Festivals.” These songs represent the suggestive but undefined titles that Debussy used to create mental images for listeners.
 
“The Nocturnes resemble Impressionist paintings like those by Monet and Van Gogh,” Wiley Pickett said, “only Debussy did it in sound.”

In addition to “The Planets” and “Nocturnes,” “The Final Frontier” will also showcase the talented Nakamura and Morden.
 
Nakamura, a CSU, Chico exchange student from Japan, will play a “flashy, almost jazzy” work by a 20th century Armenian composer, Wiley Pickett said.
 
Morden, a high school senior from Humboldt County, will perform the first movement of the “Violin Concerto” by Dimitri Kabalevsky, also a mid-20th century composer from the former Soviet Union.
 
The Final Frontier will display extraordinary young talent and will be a delight for the musicians and conductor as well.

“Concerts like The Final Frontier are really fun for the musicians, and especially fun for the conductor, ” noted Wiley Pickett.

Wiley Pickett will give a pre-concert talk prior to each performance. For more information, please call 898-5984.

North State Symphony season of concerts are presented by CSU, Chico’s School of the Arts with additional support from Chico State’s Instructionally Related Activities Fee, Tri Counties Bank, and Matson and Isom. The Final Frontier concert is sponsored by Spelts Wealth Management of Chico and Dahl and Allen Funeral Chapel in Redding.