The Fresno State Symphony Orchestra, directed by Dr. Thomas Loewenheim, will present its third concert of the season on Saturday, March 3, at 8:00 p.m. in the Department of Music Concert Hall. The concert, titled The Spotlight on the Students, will focus on three students from the Music Department. It features this year’s Concerto Competition winner, cellist Keegan Bamford, in the first movement of David Popper’s Second Cello Concerto. The orchestra will perform Thoreau’s Walden: Five Scenes, a world premiere of a new composition by two graduate composition students Mason Lamb and Matthew Wheeler based on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Wheeler writes about the composition:

“During the Summer of 2017, Mason Lamb and I were contacted by our Composition Professor Dr. Kenneth Froelich with the opportunity to orchestrate a new piece, based on the sketches from former Fresno State Professor, Karen Bell. Lamb and I both responded to the email and decided to take on the commission and separate the work load; for both of us have full-time jobs, as well as being full-time Graduate Students. We were told that the piece was based on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; so, the first thing I did was read the book to get an understanding of the tone and thematic material. Realizing that the book reflected simple living in natural surroundings, a declaration of independence and a voyage of spiritual discovery, I knew that, with the themes and sketches by Bell, I had to portray these elements in the orchestration. A true blessing was the collaboration with Karen Bell. Karen was completely open to any ideas that I had and let me run with it.”

Mason Lamb added: “There’s a gentle irony about collaborating on a piece celebrating the most famous tome of a man dedicated to the art of solitude and the power of the individual. Still, there is much to be said about the unique nature of music borne not from a single mind, but from the workings of a team. Ideas are shared, boundaries are drawn, and trust is granted to each member that they will fulfill their role in the work as a whole. So in that sense— it perhaps matches Thoreau’s idyllic vision of society quite well, as the autonomy of the individual artists is balanced against the ideal of a shared goal. From Ms. Bell’s original framework of conceptual themes— which fit neatly onto a couple pieces of staff paper— we have worked together to create an impressionist orchestral suite spanning the better part of twenty minutes. Together, we have walked through the essential themes of Walden and used the unique scope and timbres that only a symphony can provide to bring the written words into aural reality. The piece ranges over its five movements from the extreme to the austere; from moments of great tumult and chaos to glimpses of idyllic beauty and transcendent, gossamer textures. But though it all, there are four distinct artistic voices in harmony; Thoreau, Bell, Wheeler, and myself. We’re privileged to see Dr. Loewenheim and the Fresno State Symphony bring this orchestral suite to life.”

The orchestra will close the concert with Alexander Glazunov’s Russian romantic and nationalistic Fifth Symphony in B-flat Major Op. 55, titled “Heroic.” Tickets are: General: $15; Employees & Seniors: $10; Students: $5. For more information and ticket sales please check the Department of Music webpage at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/music