- [Announcer] Funding for this program has been provided by: the FS Foundation, bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose; Linda & Alvaro Pascotto; The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

Additional support provided by these funders.

(gentle classical music) (intense classical music) - The overtures that you'll hear are quite varied, as music is, classical music is.

There's a huge range.

For instance, "Oberon" Overture.

- "Oberon" by Carl Maria von Weber, it tells a very lively story, and so a lot of the music is also very lively and energetic.

- It begins slowly with a beautiful horn solo.

- And then the strings have this beautiful, ethereal, kind of underneath it, but then you hear these little bits of, like, quirkiness in the winds, and then it just goes.

- You have a brilliant, rapid, sort of orchestra virtuoso section to follow.

- It's this lively, fast, exciting kind of piece, and kind of almost breathless.

It's breathless for the orchestra, and I think for the audience also.

(gentle orchestral music) (majestic orchestral music) (peaceful orchestral music) (lively orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (upbeat orchestral music) (exciting orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music) (peaceful orchestral music) (lively orchestral music) (uplifting orchestral music) (audience applauding) - Vaughan Williams wrote this wonderful oboe concerto in 1944, which, in the midst of World War II, was probably a pretty dark time, but it's very remarkable that the piece has what I see as sort of a trajectory of optimism.

- I think, you know, it doesn't get played very often, because it's very difficult for the oboe to play, and we're very lucky that we have one of the best oboe players in the world playing it for our concert.

- In the beginning, I think you'll definitely hear the rolling British green hills.

There's a dance sort of like section already in the first movement, which is followed by this section where it just feels like an angel is coming out, heavenly.

- To hear the kind of range that can be utilized in a work by the oboe is really unique, and to have somebody who can play it and who can actually realize that wide range of not only the dynamics, the loud and soft, but also the long lines in the virtuosic music, and, certainly, the audience will probably have not have heard an oboe play that way before.

(gentle orchestral music) (whimsical orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (solemn orchestral music) - Most concertos have a fast, slow, fast sort of organization.

That's pretty typical, and Vaughan Williams chose to omit the slow movement.

- The second movement is actually extremely short.

It's a very short movement, but it's very dance-like.

It has a very simple kind of almost Baroque-ish kind of feel.

- It's "Minuet and Musette", is what he calls it, which is just a little section that's paying homage to our ancestors of the oboe.

A couple of hundred years ago, it's a smaller oboe.

It sort of has its origins in a bagpipe, and so he just makes this sort of cute section in the middle that pays homage to that.

(whimsical orchestral music) The last movement is a pretty substantial movement.

He actually composed it from some discarded parts of the Scherzo to his fifth symphony.

- The last movement is a presto, very fast.

It's extremely virtuosic for both the oboist and the orchestra, but it ends with this beautiful, almost like choral, prayerful kind of section that I've never heard anything like it.

- To me, it sounds like the troops are coming home from war, and, you know, him writing this in 1944, and maybe he's imagining, at some point, the end of the war, and it just has that sort of homecoming feeling to it, and then at the very end, he quotes the same motive that he quoted at the end of the first movement, but now presented in major and up an octave as to show the world that optimism is a good thing.

(lively orchestral music) (warm orchestral music) (foreboding orchestral music) (peaceful orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (lively orchestral music) (peaceful orchestral music) (whimsical oboe music) (peaceful orchestral music) (audience applauding) - "The Four Last Songs" by Strauss is the last songs that Strauss wrote.

Strauss was at the end of his life, a life full of accomplishment, with his wife, and he just wanted to write something for his wife, and it has to do with resignation, overlooking your entire life.

- It's a really heavy, intense work, and really emotional, and I think it's a good way to process everything that's happened this past year.

It's like loss and fear and missing things and worrying about things.

- These are all songs that have to do with change, changing of seasons, and death being one of those changes.

- And I really do love the horn writing that Richard Strauss always gives us.

It feels like a gift when composers use your instrument in a beautiful way.

- You will hear, in the flutes, they represent the birds.

Sometimes, the first violins, they represent the birds.

The last song, and specifically "Im Abendrot", you will hear four trills, and trills are two notes that are spaced together, and you will hear a, "da-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da, and you'll hear that four times at the end of "Im Abendrot", and in my opinion, those trills that you hear are the birds, saying goodbye and flying away, and it's quite magical.

(gentle orchestral music) (vocalist singing in foreign language) (audience applauding) - Playing for an audience is my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

They're just there to hear good music, and I know that that's what I can give them.

- In my life back in New York City, I'm Dean of the Preparatory Division at the Julliard School, so I work with the youth programs, and so I'm not unaccustomed to seeing extraordinarily talented young people.

I think it's great for Amaryn to have an opportunity to play with this orchestra, and she's doing a beautiful job.

For us, it's no more difficult or no more easy than it would be with anyone else, because even at her young age, she plays like a seasoned professional.

It's absolutely fantastic.

(dramatic orchestral music) (whimsical orchestral music) (lively orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (upbeat orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (triumphant orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) (lively orchestral music) (triumphant orchestral music) (audience applauding) - "Wieniawski Caprese, Opus 18, Number 4".

(lively violin music) (audience applauding) - [Announcer] Funding for this program has been provided by: the FS Foundation, bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose; Linda & Alvaro Pascotto; The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

Additional support provided by these funders.