“At Home...” Concert Preview by KJSO Music Director, Andrew Koehler

We may still be abuzz from our successful side-by-side performance with the Kalamazoo Symphony, but it’s already time to look ahead to our next performance!  On February 11th, the KJSO invites you to Chenery Auditorium for an exploration of works authentically tied to a sense of place. Composers can sometimes be inspired by travel, real or imagined – an idea we’ll take up in our spring concert – but often write most compellingly when at home, channeling their native musical culture.

Our program begins with the delightful Light Cavalry Overture by Franz von Suppé, who was a citizen of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. His Operetta about young love in an Austrian village, saved by the intervention of a clever Hungarian Hussar (horseback warrior), celebrates both halves of the Empire Suppé knew so well. We will also feature the sunny and vivacious Conga rhythms of Veracruz, Mexico, as envisioned by that country’s greatest living composer, Arturo Marquez. And to conclude, the timeless music of Georges Bizet: his Suite of incidental music to L’Arlesienne (the Girl from Arles, a French Village in Provence). By deftly weaving moments both pensive and searingly dramatic, the Suite offers evocative snapshots of the play’s lovelorn main character, his developmentally disabled brother, and the landscape of the Provençal countryside.

Between these works, we are honored to welcome Starla Breshears, the brilliant young cellist who won the bronze medal in last year’s Stulberg International String Competition. She’ll play the dazzling Rococo Variations of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and follow it with an intimate encore: We Are, by Yuri Shevchenko, a paraphrase of the national anthem and a quiet celebration of the indomitable spirit of Ukraine, stalwart despite unspeakable hardships.

The KJSOs are delighted to host 2023 Stulberg International String Competition Bronze Medalist, Starla Breshears! Starla is a student of  Jean-Michel Fonteneau at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Pre-college. She has performed as a soloist with 12 different orchestras since the age of 6 including the California Youth Symphony, Palo Alto Philharmonic, Symphony Parnassus, and the Nova Vista Symphony and has been featured with her quartet on The Violin Channel as Rising Star of the Week and on From the Top.