Juan Pablo Contreras Mariachitlán Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 40 major orchestras in the United States, Mexico, Austria, Slovakia, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, and Venezuela. He is the winner of… Read More
Sunday, November 12, 2023 Guest conductor Tito Muñoz last conducted the PSO in June 2022, filling in at the last minute for an ailing Eckart Preu at Seaside Pavilion in Old Orchard Beach. For tonight’s program, he has chosen three works with the flavor of the year’s seasons, above and below the equator. The… Read More
George Enescu Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Op. 11 George Enescu (known also as Georges Enesco) was born in 1881 in Liveni, Romania, and died in Paris in 1955. He composed this work in 1901, and led the first performance in Bucharest in 1903. The score calls for 3 flutes, piccolo, 3… Read More
Tuesday, October 12, 2023 This program could just as well be titled “National Fervor.” Musical Director Eckart Preu leads three works with immediately obvious national characteristics. Two are from countries that were part of larger empires when these pieces were written; only Romania was independent. Enescu summons a vast range of orchestral color to… Read More
George Gershwin An American in Paris George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1898 and died in Hollywood in 1937. He composed An American in Paris in 1928, and it was first performed later that year by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Walter Damrosch. The score calls for… Read More
Saturday, September 30, 2023 Sunday, October 1, 2023 PSO Music Director Eckart Preu is joined by the singers of Portland’s ChoralArt for a program of music that paints vivid pictures. Visual artists from the Maine College of Art and Design have created new work inspired by Mussorgsky’s great 1874 solo piano work Pictures at… Read More