Idaho Falls Symphony concerts to add some musical magic to the holiday season
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IDAHO FALLS — The Christmas season is a time of magic and music and the Idaho Falls Symphony is prepping to supply a dose of both with a pair of upcoming December concerts.
On Dec. 2, the Idaho Falls Symphony Youth Orchestra will perform its Fall Concert. The Youth Orchestra is composed primarily of high school-age musicians and includes the Preparatory String Group.
“(The Youth Orchestra) is a group that augments the music programs in their schools, where they’re usually just with strings alone or winds and brass alone in a band,” Symphony Musical Director Thomas Heuser told EastIdahoNews.com. “In the Youth Orchestra, they get a chance to play as a whole orchestra and that means that the strings and winds and the brass are all together.”
For the Fall Concert, the Youth Orchestra will be playing pieces written by composers from across the globe.
“They’ll be playing great music for the whole symphony,” Heuser said. “That includes the music of Borodin, a Russian composer, as well as some music of Granados, a Spanish composer, and Edvard Grieg, a Norwegian composer. So music from all over the world spanning centuries. It’s going to be pretty exciting for these kids.”
On Dec. 11, the Idaho Falls Symphony will play its first in-person concert in 22 months. Titled “The Snowman Movie and Baroque Delights,” the concert will see the Symphony supplying the musical score for a holiday silent film.
“‘The Snowman Movie’ is a very heartfelt and bittersweet Christmas story,” said Heuser. “It’s about this boy who wakes up one morning to see a beautiful snowy day. He runs outside and makes a snowman and that night, the snowman comes to life and the two of them have this wonderful overnight adventure.”
“It’s a silent film except for the orchestra that plays the live soundtrack,” he added. “We’re creating the sound effects for the movie, creating the different moods and the different characters.”
Heuser said the symphony musicians are extremely excited to play at the Idaho Falls Civic Center in front of a live audience for the first time in nearly two years.
“We’ve had a lot of online shows, all through the last year,” he said. “That got us through and we really endured in that way and stayed connected with everyone, especially our musicians. I can’t wait to have that connection with the audience. We’re calling this season ‘Reconnect’ and one of the things I anticipate is that being in the Civic Center with that live audience is really going to be food for the soul for myself and the musicians on stage.”
You can catch the Idaho Falls Symphony Youth Orchestra with the Preparatory String Group performing their Fall Concert live at the Idaho Falls Civic Center on Dec. 2 at 7:30 pm. Admission is free.
The Idaho Falls Symphony will perform “The Snowman Movie and Baroque Delights” live at the Idaho Falls Civic Center on Dec.11 at 7:30 pm. Click here to purchase tickets.
Both shows will be available to stream through the I.F. Symphony website for those who can’t make it out to the concerts in person. Visit the Symphony website or Facebook page for more information.
