Moores Music Notes
Jason Caesar Consolacion
The Edythe Bates Old Moores Opera Center will present three performances of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles on Friday, Saturday and Monday, April 17, 18 and 20.
This is the regional premiere of the work, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for its 100th anniversary. With Americans Corigliano and librettist William M. Hoffman, the work has been highly appreciated and recognized internationally, despite its few performances at only the Met and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The Moores Opera Center's production will be the second production of the opera undertaken by a university.
Directed by Buck Ross, The Ghosts of Versailles also features the Moores School Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Jacoby. The opera, presented in English, will explore the genres of comedy, mystery and romance and promises to be an entertaining theatrical exhibition.
Admission is $10 ($5 for students and seniors), and tickets are available by calling the Moores School box office at (713) 743-3313. Seating is reserved, and tickets will also be available at the door on the evening of the performance.
The Moores School Wind Ensemble will travel to Dallas today to perform at the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas.
Directed by Eddie Green, the Wind Ensemble will be performing Aaron Copland's Appalacian Spring and The Planets by Gustav Holst. The transcriptions for the pieces were provided by Merlin Paterson.
The Moores School Women's Chorus, directed by Betsy Weber, will be featured in "Neptune" from The Planets. Duncanville High School and music director Tom Shine will host the event.
For those of you out there who are unfamiliar with some of the musical terms I may use in my column I offer the Musical Term of the Week. Hopefully, this will help the musically illiterate not to feel left out when they read my articles. The definition will include the pronunciation and the literal meaning. I will also include an MSM connection.
tonic ('tawnik). The first degree of the major or minor key. The 'key-note' from which the key takes its name, as Key of A. This term is often used by all of our favorite Theory teachers; i.e. "No, Scott! 'A' is just the tonic, not the gin and tonic!"
Definition taken from The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Music.