WRO will present ‘Grand Overtures’
YANNA LANTZ
Sunday, Nov. 13, the Wood River Orchestra (WRO) will tackle some of the most beautiful and best-loved overtures ever written with their “Grand Overtures” fall concert. The concert will commence at 4 p.m. at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theatre and is free to the public.
Founded in 2007 to enrich the lives of area residents by providing opportunities to perform and enjoy orchestral music, WRO is composed of 35-40 musicians of varying ages and abilities. The orchestra performs three concerts each year and plays at multiple community events throughout the Wood River Valley.
Conductor Brad Hershey wanted to focus on showcasing the orchestra’s brass and woodwind sections for this fall concert.
“I was looking for a way to challenge and showcase our growing wind and brass sections,” Hershey, who has led the orchestra since 2011, explained. “Over the years we have done several Haydn symphonies and pieces to showcase our string players. With these popular and very recognizable overtures, we are able to get that big symphonic sound that we are becoming increasingly capable of producing.”
The concert will feature multiple recognizable overtures, including Tchaikovsky’s famous “1812 Overture” and the “William Tell Overture” by Rossini. Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Overture,” Brahms’s “Academic Festival Overture” and several other well-known overtures will round out the hour-long program.
“Attendees will recognize most or all of what we are playing in this program,” Hershey said. “They’re exciting pieces for an audience to experience and a lot of fun for musicians to perform. I think that anyone who has never seen the WRO, or has not seen the group in several years, will be impressed that we have an orchestra like this in our little Valley.”
With so many beautiful pieces of such high caliber, Hershey found it difficult to pick a favorite.
“The ‘Romeo and Juliet Overture’ is probably my favorite piece in the program,” Hershey concluded. “I love Tchaikovsky and I have enjoyed working on this piece with the orchestra. It is the most challenging in the program and I’m proud of the orchestra for the work they have put into it.”
Hershey hopes that audiences leave inspired.
“I hope that our audience members leave excited and humming the melodies that they heard,” Hershey said. “I hope it inspires people of all ages to play, whether it’s a young person who has never picked up an instrument and is interested in playing in their school program, or an older person who used to play and it got away from them. Several of our members once played in high school or college and returned to their instrument after 20 or 30 years.”
WRO is always looking for new members and is open to anyone with enough proficiency to keep up; no audition is necessary.
“Anyone interested in joining can contact us via email or phone,” Hersey explained. “That info is on our website: wrcorchestra.org. We’ll invite interested people to come check out a rehearsal to see if it is for them.”
See “Grand Overtures” at 4 p.m. on Nov. 13 at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theatre, located in the Community Campus at 1050 Fox Acres Road, Hailey. Learn more about the concert and the WRO at wrcorchestra.org.