Queens Symphony Orchestra has postponed upcoming concerts until further notice, but the borough’s oldest professional arts organization is still sharing beautiful music.
Music Director Martin Majkut has launched “What Goes through the Conductor’s Head,” which is available on Youtube on an ongoing basis.
Looking at selections that QSO planned to perform during concerts scheduled for this season, Maestro Majkut offers insight into the conducting process. As of June 1, he had created three episodes.
This first one is about Antonin Dvořák “Symphony No. 8, Second Movement.”
Written over a few months in 1889 to celebrate the Czech composer’s election to the Bohemian Academy of Science, Literature and Arts, this four-movement, cheerful symphony is heavy on flute and oboes. The second movement begins with a beautiful clarinet duo. It’s marked “Adagio,” which indicates that it’s to be played slowly, but it moves fast.
The second one focuses on British composer Gustav Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War.”
Angry and threatening, this early 20th century work represents the Roman War God Mars with rough, jagged rhythms and a pulsing drum beat. It opens “The Planets,” a seven-movement suite in which each phase is inspired by a different major planet in the solar system.
Number three is a look at “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius. Completed in 1900, this piece protests censorship imposed on the Finnish composer’s country by the Russian Empire. It’s full of stormy, swirling music, but ends with calm melodies.
More episodes will be available as they are produced. Click here for updates. (QSO still hopes to offer its annual Summer Concert Series.)
Maestro Majkut (below) has directed QSO since 2017. The Slovakia native came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar in 2003 and earned a his second doctorate from the University of Arizona in 2008. In 2016, he was named Emerging Artist by the League of American Orchestras.
Images: QSO