NJSO presents Saturday Night Out LGBT event May 3 at NJPAC

CHAMPAGNE & DESSERT RECEPTION FOLLOWS CONCERT FEATURING BRAHMS’ FIRST SYMPHONY AND DANIELPOUR CLARINET CONCERTO

Sat, May 3, at NJPAC in Newark
 

NEWARK, NJ (April 3, 2014)—The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Saturday Night Out—an event for LGBT community members and friends—on Saturday, May 3, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark. The NJSO will host a post-concert champagne and dessert reception for ticketholders who are LGBT community members and friends. The event follows the success of the Orchestra’s Friday Night Out LGBT event at NJPAC in April 2013.

The reception is free to ticketholders, but advance reservations for the post-concert reception are required. Patrons should use promotion code SATURDAYOUT when purchasing tickets for the evening’s NJSO concert online or by phone.

The NJSO’s May 3 performance of Brahms’ First Symphony at NJPAC begins at 8 pm. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill joins the Orchestra for Richard Danielpour’s Clarinet Concerto, an NJSO co-commission written for McGill. A pre-concert Classical Conversation about the program begins at 7 pm.

The program opens with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3; Lacombe highlights the connection between the composer and Brahms, whose first symphony closes the program. “Brahms was one of the most important and respected German composers ever, yet he admired and respected Beethoven’s symphonies so much that he took 20 years to write and find the courage to publish his own first symphony,” the music director says. “Brahms had felt for a long time that no one could ever write a symphony [that would match] Beethoven’s Ninth. It’s fascinating to see [Beethoven’s influence] in all of Brahms’ symphonies; Brahms respected Beethoven’s symphonic conventions to the dot, but he creates [his own] powerful world.”

The Orchestra’s New Jersey premiere of Danielpour’s Clarinet Concerto, which was written specifically for McGill and co-commissioned by the NJSO with Orchestra 2001 and the Kansas City Symphony, ties this program to the NJSO’s 2013–14 season opening concerts. “Danielpour is one of my favorite American composers, and this concerto is inspired by Martin Luther King, connecting with one of the themes we have explored this season,” Lacombe says. “When I thought about that I also thought of including the Leonore Overture because it is an expression of freedom from repression.

“Whenever I think of the Leonore Overture, I think of the reopening of the Vienna State Opera after the Second World War,” the music director says. “When you hear this music, you get this feeling of freedom, of finally being safe and in a free world—it must have been incredibly moving for the people in the concert hall after living through the horrors of World War II. To combine this work with a piece dedicated to Martin Luther King is very engaging and meaningful.”

More information about Saturday Night Out is available at www.njsymphony.org/lgbt.

TICKETS
Tickets start at $20 and are available for purchase online or by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476). To reserve a space for the Saturday Night Out LGBT reception, enter the promotion code SATURDAYOUT when purchasing online or mention SATURDAYOUT to a ticketing representative when purchasing by phone.

The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey is concert sponsor. The Prudential Foundation is a Saturday Night Out sponsor.

Additional program information is available here.