OSU Symphonic Orchestra Last Concert “Three Cheers for Tchaikovsky”

Three cheers for who? Well for Tchaikovsky of course.

Tuesday night, OSU Symphonic Orchestra took to the stage at the Seretean Center for its last concert of the season. It’s program, titled Three Cheers for Tchaikovsky, consisted of three pieces written by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Each composition reflected different times in Tchaikovsky’s life.

“It (the concert) was really interesting because we got to see three different sides of Tchaikovsky,” Tomas Neely, the concertmaster and a violinist in the concert, said.

Having different styles of music from the same composer required a large range of technique to perform. The first piece was called Polonaise.

“The Polonaise was really hard for the violins, and we all worked really hard to get it done,” Neely said.

Samantha Kerns, a cellist in the concert, noticed the difficulty too. “The first piece is really cute and short; The violins had a tough part, but they nailed it,” Kerns said. Queen of Spades was the second piece of the night.

“Queen of spades is where we got to relax a little bit. It is very very light and delicate music,” said Neely.

Kerns seems to agree, and said that the second piece was not what people think of when they think Tchaikovsky.

“The Queen of Spades is not played as much and isn’t what you tend to expect out of Tchaikovsky,” Kerns said. “It’s good to throw that kind of thing into the concert though because it gets the audience listing to stuff they wouldn’t really expect.”

The third piece of the night was Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. This piece is a favorite, but as much as crowds love it, it is hard to perform. This symphony requires roughly 50 minutes of seemingly uninterrupted preforming.

“Trak 5 (Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5) is like running a marathon but with music,” Kerns said. “It has a lot of interesting melodies that make it a really unique symphony.”

In any profession, preforming complex tasks like this typically takes more time to perfect, but the orchestra prepared the concert with less time than usual.

“We surprisingly have not had many rehearsals,” Neely said. “Normally we get about 12 to 13 rehearsals per performance cycle, but for this performance we had eight.”

Dr. Tomas Dickey, the OSU Director of Orchestral Studies and conductor for the night, viewed the short time frame as a challenge more than an obstacle. “A part of my teaching philosophy is that necessity is the mother of invention,” Dr. Dickey said.

He knew that they were up to the challenge too. “I could tell that they were excited about the music from the first rehearsal,” He said. “Because it was music they really enjoyed, they tackled it with more exuberance than they might have otherwise.”

Three Cheers for Tchaikovsky was the last concert the OSU Symphonic Orchestra will perform this school year.

“This year was more challenging than the year before because we added two extra concerts per semester… but that is a really good experience for college musicians wanting to go into the professional world,” Neely said.

“I think the year has kind of been leading up to this production. We started with a symphony that is not as well-known and wasn’t as crazy as the symphony No. 5,” Kerns said. “Each concert and each pieces kept getting harder and harder, so when we got to trak 5 we were like let’s do this.”

“This was our eleventh performance this year… I’ve stretched the orchestra in pretty much every direction possible,” Dr. Dickey said. “From standard orchestral repertoire, to Halloween music, to vocal music, we even played a new piece that had only recently been discovered. This is a season that pretty much any professional musician would have.”

With this concert season ending, Dr. Dickey is looking towards their next season. “We already know we are going to be playing Beethoven’s fifth symphony, which perfect strangers to music recognize as one of the most famous symphonies ever,” Dr. Dickey said.

“We are also looking forward to doing a piece called The Planets, by Gustav Holst, which inspired a lot of modern Si-Fi music.”

Kerns has been looking forward to preforming the planets since she heard the OSU Symphonic Orchestra play it at Stillwater High school. “I’m so excited about The Planets. It’s a beautiful piece.” Kerns said.

With the McKnight Center months away from completion, OSU will be seeing even more from the Symphonic Orchestra when they open for new concerts next school year.