Music Under the Dome returns for the 2023-24 season with a tour de force program of incredible music by French/Basque composer Maurice Ravel, who Igor Stravinsky described as the Swiss watchmaker of composers, given the precision of his compositions and their exquisite level of musical detail. Entitled Mirrored Fountains, the performance begins with Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, a virtuosic work for piano that sparkles, glitters, and shimmers from start to end, performed by Schwob student Jerry Jiarui Zhang. Next is his complete Miroirs, with movements including Noctuelles (Night Moths), Oiseaux Tristes (Sad Birds), Une Barque sur l’ocean (A Boat on the Ocean), Alborada del Gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester), and La Vallée des cloches (The Valley of Bells). Each movement possesses dazzling color and will be played by Schwob pianists including Magdalena Nikolajuk, Nikol Bazalytska, Yiduo Zhao, Jungmin Park, and Justyna Barańska. These students, all from the studio of Dr. Esther Park, the L. Rexford Whiddon Endowed Chair for Piano, hail from around the world and will be performing on the amazing Yamaha Disklavier instrument at the CCSSC.

The designs will be as inventive as always, created by Omnisphere Director and MUTD Technical Director Lance Tankersley.

Reception at 5 pm with wine and cheese, and 45-minute concert at 5:37pm!

Our next performance, entitled Reflections Through the Years, features music spanning over three centuries of great compositions. We start with Schwob clarinet faculty, Dr. Lisa Oberlander, playing three movements from Bach’s sweeping Cello Suite No. 2, written in 1717 and arranged for Bb clarinet. Next is Dvorak’s beautiful and haunting work for cello written in 1883, Silent Woods, performed by Schwob student Kevin Zapata. After this, Schwob horn professor Dr. Anne-Marie Cherry will partner with electronic specialist Nick Williams in Gina Gille’s 2022 work Pale Blue Dot, a fabulously inventive piece blending acoustic and electronic elements. The program will conclude with Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky’s virtuosic Reflections, a powerful work for piano written in 1925, and performed by Schwob student Anastasiia Zakharchenko, also hailing from Ukraine.

The designs for this program will be offered by incredible young artist, Greysen Turner, who comes to us from South Carolina.

Reception at 5 pm with wine and cheese, and 45-minute concert at 5:37pm!