Guest performers set for 2015-16 Albany Symphony Orchestra season

ALBANY — The return of a talented young violinist, a father/son violin team at Christmas and a Native-American flutist are on the schedule when the Albany Symphony Orchestra launches its 2015-16 concert season next month.

Later this month, the symphony will also begin the latest season of the Sunday-afternoon chamber concerts at the Albany Museum of Art.

“I think this will be just a good concert series,” Mari Wright, executive director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, said in an interview last week.

The three-concert subscription series at the Albany Municipal Auditorium will get underway Sept. 26 with guest performer Tim Fain, a violinist who will be making his third appearance with the ASO in a concert titled “A Red Violin & A Black Swan.”

“He was the violinist in the film ‘The Black Swan,’” ASO Music Director Claire Fox Hillard said of Fain, who first performed with the Albany Symphony Orchestra when he was a Young Concert Artist. “He’s been here twice before.” Fain also provided the violin music for Richard Gere’s character in the 2005 film “Bee Season.” More recently, Fain performed for 2013’s “12 Years a Slave.”

Wright, the executive director for the ASO, said she thinks the opening concert “is going to appeal to a very wide audience.”

“He’s a California boy,” Hillard said of the Santa Monica native. “He loves to skateboard and go running.”

The September concert will include “Ricercar a 6” from “The Musical Offering” (Bach/Webern); “Chaconne” from “The Red Violin” (Corigliano); “Swan remix” from “Black Swan” (Tchaikovsky/Fain) and “Enigma Variations” (Elgar).

The opener will be followed Dec. 12 with “Spontaneous Christmas,” featuring contemporary violinist Doug Cameron. Cameron will be accompanied onstage by his 9-year-old son, Alex, who also plays the electric violin. Among the holiday music will be pieces such as “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” an orchestral version of “Feliz Navidad,” “Orange Blossom Christmas” and a three-movement violin concerto “Carol of the Bells.”

“This man is amazing, Doug Cameron,” Wright said. “He plays things we know, but it’s the way he does it.”

In addition to his son, some young Dougherty County musicians will have a chance to perform during the holiday concert.

“We’ll have to find some kids this fall who can perform at a certain level,” Wright said. “They’ll be able to come on stage and play with the orchestra and his son. I think it’ll bring more children in and show them they can learn.”

The final of the three subscription performances will be one that was delayed from this past spring. On April 9, Native American flutist Joseph FireCrow will bring “America’s Music” to Albany during a weeklong visit that, in addition to the symphony performance, will include interaction with the Dougherty County School System and with Chehaw and its annual Native American Festival.

The symphony concert will feature “Three Spirituals for Orchestra” (Hailstork); “The Gift of the Elk” (Cockey) and Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” (Dvorak).

“It’s a happy fusion of the symphonic world with the Native American world, and then you bring in the multimedia aspects of it,” Hillard said.

Chehaw “wants to be a part of it,” Wright said. “I think he’s (FireCrow) looking forward to being there during the festival.”

Hillard said FireCrow had not been familiar with Chehaw’s festival but since has done some online research about it.

Interaction with the local schools will be a big part of the season, including the Symphony@the Museum series that starts Aug. 23 with a performance by the South Georgia Tuba Quartet. That will be followed Nov. 1 with Maestro & Friends, Feb. 28 with Emerald Coast Trio and conclude May 22 with Anon Ensemble.

Hillard said guest performers at the subscription and Sunday concerts will each have a day available to work with students in various grades. Symphony officials were slated to meet with music teachers in the Dougherty County School System late last week to provide information on the performers and their availability schedule.

“We’re letting them know who we’ve got coming and when,” Hillard said, adding the Fain and the ASO also will be involved in a concert in Tifton as part of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s ABAC Presents! series.

Tickets for the Albany Symphony season were scheduled to go on sale this week. Ticket package costs range from $150-$175 for all seven concerts ($60, students), $90-$100 for the three Saturday-night Municipal Auditorium concerts ($25, students) and $70, adults, and $35, students, for the Sunday-afternoon museum chamber performances. Conductor’s Circle Series — receptions with guest artists after the Saturday evening performances — is $65.

Individual tickets are $40, premium seating at the Municipal Auditorium; $35, general seating at Municipal Auditorium; $25, Albany Museum concert; $10, student; $25, Conductor’s Circle.

The Saturday concerts downtown will each start at 7:30 p.m., preceded by pre-concert notes at 6:30 p.m. The chamber concerts at the museum start Sundays at 4 p.m.

For information and tickets, contact (229) 430-8933 or visit www.albanysymphony.org.