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World Premiere Flute Concerto Preview

A new flute concerto called Tracing Mississippi gets its premiere with the BPO this week.By Bill Raffel, WBFO

Buffalo, NY – The Buffalo Philharmonic features several pieces with folk influences in a concert called "American Roots." Good morning. I'm Bill Raffel with Music Notes.

This Friday night, Conductor Ron Spigelman will lead the orchestra in favorites such as Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite and Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. But the featured work is the world premiere of a new flute concerto entitled Tracing Mississippi commissioned by the orchestra's principal flutist, Christine Bailey. The composer Jarod Tate is a friend Christine met while attending the Cleveland Institute of Music.

See the world premiere of Tracing Mississippi Friday (3/8) at 7:30PM in Kleinhans Music Hall. And if you arrive at 6:45, you can catch musicians from Frontier High School, Christine Bailey's Alma Mater. And the children's concert she mentioned takes place Sunday (3/10) at 2:30PM, both in Kleinhans.

Orchestral music in the Southern Tier as the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Richard Rogers in Jamestown's Reg Lenna Civic Center. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Broadway composer's birth. Soprano Lisa Vroman and Baritone Douglas Webster will join them, Wednesday (3/6) at 8PM.

And in Olean, the Lark Quartet and Peter Schickele will perform Haydn's Lark Quartet and two works by Schickele. That's Sunday (3/10) at 7PM in the Olean High School Auditorium. By the way, when Peter Schickele writes under his own name, those are his serious compositions. Don't go expecting PDQ Bach.

Pianist Read Gainsford and Vocalist Steve Stull will feature songs of English Composers Tuesday (3/5) at 8PM in the Wick Center of Daemen College.

The Choirs from Blessed Sacrament and Trinity Episcopal Churches will sing some Lenten Vespers together Sunday at 4PM in Blessed Sacrament on Delaware near Utica.

Finally, two well-known pianists present a program of duets for both one and two pianos. Stephen and Freida Manes will use separate instruments for Mozart's Sonata in D Major but share the bench for Johannes Brahms' Variations of a Theme of Robert Schumann. Their recital takes place Saturday (3/9) at 8PM in Slee Hall on UB's North Campus.