Nashua Chamber Orchestra November 7, 8  Concerts

Nashua – November 7, 7:30PM and Milford – November 8, 3:00PM

The Nashua Chamber Orchestra under the direction of David Feltner, is pleased to announce its opening concert of its 2015--’16 season, “War and Remembrance”, The program includes works by von Suppe, Dittersdorf, Haydn and Faure, Featured soloist Josep Quer Agusti, from Spain, will perform the Concerto No, 2 for Double Bass, by Karl Ditters von Dittersdort. The Nashua Choral Society will collaborate with the NCO for the Faure Requiem, The two performance dates are:

SATURDAY, NOV. 7th, 7:30PM; Nashua Community College, Judd Gregg Hall; 505 Amherst Street

SUNDAY, NOV. 8th, 3:00PM; Milford Town Hall, 1 Union Square on the Milford Oval

Tickets can be purchased at the door, or in advance at Darrell’s Music Hall in Nashua, and the Toadstool Bookstore in Lorden Plaza, Milford, or on line at the web site: www,nco-music,org

Prices are $18 adult, $15 senior, and $8 student; children under 12, free, For more information, check the web site at www,nco-music,org or phone (603) 582-5211,

Gabriel Faure composed his Requiem in D Minor in the late 1880s and revised it in the 1890s, finishing it in 1900, It is the best known of his large works, and differs from other famous Requiems in its pervasive atmosphere of tranquility, without the bombastic drama that is heard in the Requiems of Verdi or Brahms, Faure said: “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.” The Requiem, based on the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead, consists of seven movements, composed for chorus and orchestra and featuring a baritone and a soprano soloist. Notable is the absence of violins, The lower strings, violas, cellos and bass, lend a darker, deeper dimension, Faure’s words, again: “”,1 see death “, as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience”,” Faure’s beautiful Requiem, so expressive of his unique musical idiom, conveys an ethereal serenity, a feeling of eternal peace, The Nashua Chamber Orchestra will be joined by the Nashua Choral Society, Philip Lauriat, director,

The performance of a double bass concerto is a rare event, even for avid concert-qoers, The double-bass (thus named because its initial role was to double the cello, one octave lower) generally assumes the role of the foundation of the orchestra, Although it has the largest range of the string instruments, it is seldom heard as a solo instrument, and there are only a small number of bass concertos, The oldest surviving concertos for double-bass are the two by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739--1799), a lesser known contemporary of Haydn and Mozart with a prolific output spanning all the major genres of his time, The Concerto No, 2 for Double-bass and Orchestra dates from 1762, The two outer movements move at a good clip and are full of ear-catching motifs and virtuoso technical feats: double stops (2 notes played simultaneously), harmonics (high notes produced by touching the string in exactly the right place), and dazzling fast passages, By contrast, the lyrical middle movement sings with gentle, serene melodies, The visual spectacle rivals the listening experience, as the soloist must be quite nimble to cover long distances in an instant.

Bass soloist and teacher Josep Quer comes to us from Girona in northern Spain (Catalunya), He is a specialist in Spanish and Catalan ethnic genres, in which he has recorded two CDs, He held the post of co-principal bassist of the Orquestre del Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, until his retirement in 2008, Mr. Quer travels extensively, and has performed as soloist throughout Europe, in the US and in Russia, He is playing a Spanish bass modeled on an 18th century Italian prototype, This instrument, built by Catalan luthier Jordi Ruscada, is pear-shaped, without the ‘corners’ seen on standard basses.