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By Natasha Anderson<\/p>\n
The Blue Ridge Orchestra (BRO) begins its 2023-2024 season with The Well-Tempered Wizard<\/em>, a Halloween-themed concert presented on Saturday, October 28, in Charles Beall Auditorium at Haywood Community College (HCC) in Clyde, and on Sunday, October 29, in Lipinsky Auditorium at UNC Asheville. Both concerts begin at 3 p.m. Audience members are encouraged to don costumes to add to the fun of these family-friendly performances.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Well-Tempered Wizard<\/em> provides a wonderful opportunity to introduce youngsters to the orchestra with an afternoon of fun music and a chance to dress up,\u201d says BRO music director Milton Crotts. \u201cI look forward to sharing the excitement of symphonic sound with concertgoers of all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n From the opening chords of Bach\u2019s celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to the closing strains from the score of Harry Potter<\/em> and the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone,<\/em> Crotts has designed a program that evokes the spirit of Halloween. Works from the classical music world\u2014Mozart\u2019s Don Giovanni<\/em> Overture, Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Danse Macabre<\/em> and Grieg\u2019s In the Hall of the Mountain King<\/em>\u2014are complemented by selections from Broadway\u2019s Wicked<\/em> and The Phantom of the Opera<\/em>.<\/p>\n Featured artists for the program include Paula Sisson Akbar on violin and Tinder Burris on violoncello. Akbar has played in the Oregon, New Haven and Baltimore Symphonies and the Kennedy Center Opera\/Ballet Orchestra. In 2016 she retired from the National Symphony Orchestra\u2019s first violin section after 24 years. Burris recently retired from Miami-Dade County Public Schools as the orchestra director of Southwood Middle School Center for the Performing Arts.<\/p>\n The performance at Charles Beall Auditorium is one of two to be held there this season as an extension of BRO\u2019s collaboration with HCC. This is central to the ensemble\u2019s mission of community outreach.<\/p>\n \u201cPerforming at the college provides the BRO with an opportunity to bring great symphonic music to a wider WNC audience,\u201d says BRO president Deb Kenney. \u201cAfter a performance there in May of 2023, a concertgoer exclaimed that it was the first time she had heard live symphonic music in 20 years, as she could no longer make the drive to Asheville.\u201d<\/p>\n One hundred percent of ticket sales go directly to support a variety of individual Haywood Community College students\u2019 needs.
\nTickets for the October 28 concert are $25 general admission, $15 for students and free for children under age five. Tickets for the<\/p>\n