Binghamton University’s Symphony Orchestra will present a Winter Lights concert this weekend in celebration of the upcoming holiday season.
The concert will start tomorrow at 8 p.m. in the Osterhout Concert Theater of the Anderson Center. Admission is free for students, $5 for faculty, staff and seniors, and $10 for the general public.
Timothy Perry, Ph.D., conductor of the BU Symphony Orchestra for 23 seasons, described the show as a “combination seasonal concert.”
According to Perry, the concert’s repertoire will include six pieces: an operetta piece called “Vie Fleder Mouse,” Vivaldi’s “Winter Concerto” from “The Four Seasons,” a concert waltz from Tchaikovsky’s opera “Eugene Onegin,” “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” by Ralph Vaughan Williams and a Hanukkah medley. It will conclude with a popular seasonal piece titled “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson.
Christina Laube, a senior majoring in finance and a violinist in the orchestra, said that attendance at the concerts is generally high.
The orchestra usually receives “a great turnout from the community,” Laube said, adding that “crowds are larger or smaller depending on the popularity of the music.”
Laube said she “especially likes the Winter Lights show for its holiday feel and variety of Christmas, Hanukkah and seasonal music.”
The Winter Lights concert will feature additional accompaniment for some of the pieces by the BU Chorus and three soloists.
According to Perry, the three soloists will be Janey Choi, Timothy LeFebvre and Robin Seletsky. Both Choi and LeFebvre are professors in the music department, and Seletsky is the principal clarinetist of the Binghamton Philharmonic.
The orchestra itself is comprised of approximately 73 students from about 21 different majors on the BU campus, according to Perry.
Amy Honigsberg, a junior majoring in mathematics, is a violinist for the ensemble.
“[The orchestra] plays everything from modern to traditional and classical music,” Honigsberg said. “We have a very diverse program depending on the concert.”
Students are selected through auditions which take place at the beginning of each fall semester, Perry said. While auditions are also held in the spring, the space is limited to filling seats within the orchestra, since most fall seats are still taken.
Perry said that the students are required to re-audition every year to receive a seat in the orchestra.
Max Rosenberg, a senior majoring in Spanish, has been an oboist in the Symphony Orchestra since his freshman year.
Rosenberg said that he “really enjoys [his] experience in the BU Orchestra” and that it is an “excellent extracurricular activity” to be involved with.