Season Overview from NSO @ Wolf Trap Festival Conductor Emil de Cou
There has never been a more colorful and varied collection of musical styles than there is this summer with the NSO@ Wolf Trap.
Our assortment of riches ranges from high definition, wide screen wonders to the most intimate of love songs. We start off with an NSO @ Wolf Trap debut on July 9 with the country sensation LeAnn Rimes. We complement her performances of “Blue” and “What I Cannot Change” with a full throttle “Orange Blossom Special,” courtesy of the NSO fiddle section.On July 10 we bring back the Kennedy Center’s runaway sellout hit of 2007, Video Games Live! Conductor Jack Wall and host Tommy Tallarico return for another program of live music with cutting-edge visuals. With Wolf Trap’s massive screens and the NSO performing live, you’ll never experience Myst, Halo, or Civilization IV the same way again! And for the purists, we present a throwback to the classics with Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man.
We celebrate all things Hamlisch on July 11 as NSO Principal Pops Conductor Marvin Hamlisch performs music from A Chorus Line, The Swimmer, and The Way We Were and dazzles the audience with brilliant improvisations and musical surprises. (You’re safe on the lawn if you don’t want to be part of the show.) Magic and mystery rule the day (and night) on our second weekend with the NSO@ Wolf Trap.
On July 23, with Carl Orff’s grand vocal pageant of medieval love, wine, and life, Carmina burana blazes a sonic trail across the Filene Center stage, accompanied by other orchestral fireworks such as Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Bach-Stokowski’s Toccata and Fugue popularized in Disney’s Fantasia.
Back by popular demand on July 24 is The Wizard of Oz in its entirety, with the National Symphony accompanying Dorothy, Toto, and all her friends— even the Wicked Witch of the West. People often ask about the hardest bit to conduct—hands down it is the Gilbert and Sullivan-like mini-musical at the start of the Munchkin Land sequence. The Munchkins rush ahead, they get behind, and worse, they don’t listen to me or follow a thing I am doing! I can tap my baton and shout “People! People!” and they still go on their merry old way in the merry old Land of Oz. At the end of that sequence I am not merely dead; I am really most sincerely dead.
The next night, July 25, it’s movie music by John Williams. From Star Wars, E.T., Jaws, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, pops legend and conductor Erich Kunzel guides us through some of the best known and most beloved music in the history of film.
July 30 marks violinist Sarah Chang’s return to Wolf Trap since her debut in 1997. She’ll soar though the night air on the wings of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. It’s a program of beloved classics that also includes Four Dance Episodes from Copland’s Rodeo and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony.
On July 31, you’ll never see anything more spectacular than Blue Planet Live—the BBC/ Discovery Channel’s series brought to the big screen. The majesty of breeching whales and darting dolphins is matched perfectly to the music of George Fenton (best known for the film scores to Gandhi and Dangerous Liaisons). This is a joyous celebration of the beauty of life unseen by most land dwellers. Music alternately sizzles and swoons in our final two performances.
What better way to end the summer with the NSO@ Wolf Trap than with selections from Rent and Phantom of the Opera on August 1 with Broadway Rocks!, and Puccini’s La bohème on August 7, presented by the brilliant young singers of the Wolf Trap Opera Company.
So join us as the Filene Center reverberates with the sounds of summer. In what other national park can you find yourself among Harry Potter and Ewoks, flying monkeys and green witches, Mimi and Marvin, Debussy and dolphins? I guarantee a summer wonderfully rich and full of sensual delights and the romance that only comes from an evening with the NSO@Wolf Trap, where you’re never sure what will happen! It all comes down to music, love, joy, a starry sky, and you.
