Tifereth Israel Synagogue

TICO Announces Its 2008-2009 Season

TICO has been affiliated with Tifereth Israel Synagogue for well over a decade. During this time, it has presented many a memorable concert and has featured some world famous artists at the top of their careers. At times we have brought in young artists on their way to stardom, and consistently, new works have been commissioned from living composers, emphasizing Jewish culture, history, and traditions.

The 2008-2009 season is one of the more varied and interesting to date. While there is always the presentation of traditional orchestral music we all know and love, our “comfort music,” many exciting and innovative compositions will be heard. There will be several world premieres, heard for the first time ever at our Cohen Social Hall concerts.

For this season, conductor David Amos has conceived the idea of taking classic works which were originally written for the concert band, or wind ensemble, and giving them a new life and new audiences as re-orchestrated works for symphony orchestra. Each concert will have one composition meeting this criterion.

All concerts will be on Tuesday nights at 7:30 p.m., with the exception of the Summer Pops, which, as usual is a Sunday program at 3:00 p.m.

Here is a summary and the dates of the concerts:

• November 18, 2008: Suite in E Flat by Gustav Holst, Tchaikovsky’s Ballet Music from “Swan Lake,” and the Second Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms, with guest pianist Daniel Wnukowski, an award-winning virtuoso, coming to us from his home in Switzerland.
• January 27, 2009: This will be a most unusual concert, where the theme is the fusion of music from other cultures and styles with Western instruments. There will be music with influences of Jazz, Indian Raga, and Native Americans, with new music by David Ward-Steinman, Brent Heisinger, and others. The featured instrument will be the Native American Flute, and the guest artist, James Pellerite, is recognized as the world’s leading interpreter of this exquisite instrument. This will be a true, once in a lifetime experience.

• March 31, 2009: Music by Bizet, his “L’Arlesienne Suite #2,” Bernard Gilmore’s “Five Songs for Soprano and Orchestra” with Victoria Robertson as soloist (The last song is in Yiddish!), a composition by TICO member Mark Donnelly, and a new violin concerto by Jeannie Pool, with our concertmaster Juanita Cummins as soloist.
• June 9, 2009: Music by Moussorgsky, Glazunov, and Percy Grainger. This exciting concert will present as a guest artist 18 year old Julian Schwartz, playing the Saint-Saens “Cello Concerto.” Julian, a brilliant performer, is the son of Seattle Symphony conductor Gerard Schwartz, who will be present at the concert. TICO will also play a touching composition by Maestro Schwartz, “Rudolf and Jeanette,” his loving tribute to his grandparents who perished in the Holocaust.
• August 2, 2009: Our annual Pops Concert, with the delightful and familiar mix of light classics, music from film, television and Broadway, waltzes, marches, and as always, a few surprises. This program is very popular, and it invariably sells out.

A season brochure, describing all the programs is available upon request. Be sure to be included in the TICO mailing list.

To purchase season ticket packages, individual concert tickets, or for any other information, call the synagogue office at (619) 697-6001 or email receptionist@tiferethisrael.com.