Insight: Mozetich's Concerto for Two Harps

The Omaha Symphony will open the 2016/17 season with Beethoven’s sunniest symphony paired with a concerto featuring two harps in Beethoven’s Fourth, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2 p.m., in Joslyn Art Museum’s Witherspoon Concert Hall. Conducted by Music Director Thomas Wilkins, the program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Mozetich’s Concerto for Two Harps, “The Passion of Angels,” featuring principal harp Mary Bircher and Katie Wychulis, harp, and Poulenc’s Suite française, a contemporary take on Renaissance dance music. Mozetich’s Concerto for Two Harps is typical of the composer’s lush, neo-Romantic style, combining nineteenth-century Romanticism, recent popular music, minimalism, and “New Age.” Featuring two harps as the primary instrument, the single movement begins with two circling harps figures, which prepare and accompany an expansive theme announced as a horn solo and developed to an initial climax. Other solos include violin, a dreamlike passage for bassoon, a section that resembles the rhythm of the Charleston, and the two harps taking ever more prominent roles. Tickets are $33 and can be purchased by visiting www.omahasymphony.org or by calling Ticket Omaha at 402.345.0606.