The thick cloud and downfall of snow has set the stage for this weekend's Prince George Symphony Orchestra show.
The PGSO's next mainstage production is called The Mysterious Mountain. The orchestra's artistic director and conductor Jos Delgado-Guevara said he assembled the pieces for this collection of music with the local landscape in mind. The beauty and power of the Cariboo-Omineca region was the theme he kept in mind for this feature show placed at the transition point between fall and winter - two seasons that especially draw our attention to mountains with the sprays of autumn colour giving way to snows and icy wind.
These seasons and these mountains are neutral in their influence over us, said Delgado-Guevara. They are at once magnificent and terrible, life-sustaining and life-threatening, but there is no doubt that they spark intense emotional reactions. No one can be indifferent to these geological structures that surround us and dictate so much of the rest of our landscape's other features.
It was Delgado-Guevara's challenge and pleasure to find music to match. He naturally settled first on one piece he called "a high point" in the genre to the degree it is even named for the apex of the terrain.
"Ominous darkness is broken by the lightning flash of genius in Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain Symphony," he said. "This peak of contemporary American music - hushed, reverential, mystical, and nostalgic - exudes an unwavering dedication to the heroic ideals of the Romantic era masters."
Along with the Hovhaness centrepiece, the PGSO will also explore the peaks and valleys of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 to round out the theme. Internationally recognized pianist Nikolai Choubine will also make his PGSO debut, performing Chopin's Piano Concerto No.1 in E Minor which, said Delgado-Guevara, recalls the virtuosity of the early Romantics.
Tickets are on sale at the PGSO office, at Studio 2880, and through the Ticketmaster system. Adult tickets are $31, senior rate is $27, and student rate is $15.
Showtime for The Mysterious Mountain is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Vanier Hall.
