Let Us Begin
Sunday, October 6, 20143 – 3 p.m.
St. Michael’s Lutheran Church (9201 Normandale Blvd., Bloomington)
Manny Laureano, Artistic Director and Conductor
Susan Billmeyer, Piano
Shostakovich: Scherzo for Orchestra in f# minor Op. #1
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 25
Susan Billmeyer, piano
Brahms: Symphony #1 in C Minor, Op. 68
The great composers of the past proved repeatedly that the only thing that is constant in musical history is change. The revolutionary quality of these musical upstarts is evident in how they blended a familiar musical language with flashes of the composer-to-come. In his Scherzo in F# Minor, 13 year-old Dmitri Shostakovitch served as a bridge between the old and the new Russian style. Contrast this with a mature Johannes Brahms, who ripened himself with sumptuous chamber music before finally publishing his first symphony at age 43. It took him 14 years to complete his Symphony #1 in C Minor! Piano soloist Susan Billmeyer rounds out this concert with a performance of the first of Mendelssohn’s piano concerti, his Concerto in G Minor, written when he was just 21 years old.