Kentucky Symphony Orchestra opens 33rd season with celebration of Mexico’s Day of the Dead

The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra opens its 33rd season on November 2 with haunting and festive music that pairs Halloween and the Mexican celebration of el Dia de los Muertos — Day of the Dead.

The concert/celebration will include audience and musician face-painting, hand painted masks by the Art Academy of Cincinnati, candles and a large public ofrenda — offering altar — on the plaza with opportunities for patrons to bring photos and to light candles for departed loved ones.

The KSO performs Mexican and Latin composers Revueltas, Moncayo, and Ginastera with music by Berlioz, Corigliano, Bolling, Liszt and Elfman for a fright- fully fun evening of classics, premieres and Hispanic favorites and culture.

The program opens with Berlioz’s “Dream of the Witches Sabbath” followed by Silvestre Revueltas’ serpent-inspired Sensemayá. John Corigliano’s opera The Ghost of Versailles (with its Mozart and Rossini quotations) is heard in a Tristate premiere of the Phantasmagoria suite. Claude Bolling’s contemplative “Mexicaine” from his Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Piano Trio closes the first half as the audience creates a special ambience by placing their memorial candles at the public ofrenda on the plaza at intermission.

The second half opens with Alberto Ginestera’s diabolical “Toccata Concertata” from his first piano concerto featuring pianist May Phang. Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 follows, with José Moncayo’s jubilant Huapango and closing with Danny Elfman’s creepily beautiful “Pianos” from Serenada Schizophrana (also a regional premiere). Zequinha de Abreu’s Tico-Tico No Fuba offers an enthusiastic, rollicking encore and kick-off to a killer season.

Celebrate the Day of the Dead in concert with the KSO, 7:30 p.m. Saturday. November 2 at Greaves Concert Hall, NKU, Highland Heights. For additional info and tickets — kyso.org or call 859-431-6216.

Kentucky Symphony Orchestra

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