Published March 28, 2025

Reno Chamber Orchestra & Reno Phil Blooming with Spring Concerts

by Scott Faulkner

For most of the last three weeks, I have battled a virus that just won’t go away. In addition to causing my wife and me to cancel a trip, and me to pull out of the recent Reno Phil Pines of Rome concert, it has also slashed into my gumption for things like writing an Art Views column. So, with apologies, I’m going to let YouTube do the heavy lifting this time.

In the next couple of weeks, the Reno Chamber Orchestra and Reno Phil will continue their seasons with some really compelling concerts. What follows are thumbnails about what will be played, and links to performances of those works for you to preview. In addition to these musical samples, both orchestras offer informative pre-concert conversations before each performance, and Reno musical treasure Chris Morrison provides must-read program notes for both orchestras.

 

Reno Chamber Orchestra
“Latin Bridges”
April 5 (7:30 p.m.) and April 6 (2:00 p.m.)
Kelly Kuo, conductor
www.renochamberorchestra.org

This concert in UNR’s Nightingale Concert Hall opens with George Gershwin’s electric Cuban Overture arranged for chamber orchestra by Javier Diaz. Although this is the full orchestra version, here is a tasty excerpt from the piece performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.

Gershwin: Cuban Overture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRGTvK2S-G8 

Next in the concert is Astor Piazzolla’s tango infused Sinfonietta in three movements:

Piazzolla: Sinfonietta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKCXTT3oVAo 

The second half of the concert features a unique setting of a very familiar piece. Handel’s Messiah is one of the most beloved works in the chamber orchestra repertoire. During Vahe Khochayan’s tenure as music director, the RCO presented this work each December as a gift to the community but has not performed the work in a couple of decades. Current music director, Kelly Kuo, is bringing excerpts from Messiah back, but this time in a Spanish translation. The RCO will be joined by a chamber chorus of some of the finest local singers, as well as guest soloists Zulimar López-Hernandez (soprano), Genaro Mendez (tenor), and Gerardo de la Torre (baritone) Here is an excerpt of the Orange Coast College Chamber Singers rehearsing the Aleluya chorus from El Mesías en Español.

Handel: Hallelujah from El Mesías
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T7nK4E3tBc 

 

Reno Phil
“Lord Nelson Mass”
April 12 (7:30 p.m.) and April 13 (4:00 p.m.)
Laura Jackson, conductor
www.renophil.com

The next Reno Phil concerts open with the west coast premiere of Ukrainian composer Iryna Aleksiychuk’s Go where the wind takes you... which was commissioned by the Taki-Alsop Conducting Fellowship. Here is the world premiere performance of the work, conducted last summer by Reno Phil music director, Laura Jackson, with the Prague Summer Nights Festival Orchestra.

Iryna Aleksiychuk: Go where the wind takes you…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCTIY3F-YMg 

Paul Hindemith’s orchestral setting of music from his opera Mathis der Maler has become much more well known than the original opera. This virtuosic, instrumental work will show off the wizardry and artistry of my Reno Phil colleagues

Hindemith: Mathis der Maler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0hPMKRDzvw 

The concert concludes with Haydn’s still very timely Lord Nelson Mass. The orchestra will be joined by the Reno Phil Chorus (Jennie Tibben, director) and soloists Renée Richardson (soprano), Elise Quagliata (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Cooley (tenor), and Elliot Madore (bass-baritone).

Haydn: Lord Nelson Mass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSzYLdpWac 

I hope that you will join us for these concerts, and I also hope that this cough will have gone away by the time we play them. Happy Spring!

Scott Faulkner is principal bassist of both the Reno Chamber Orchestra and Reno Phil. For the League of American Orchestras, he serves as faculty director of its Essentials of Orchestra Management program as well as director of its League Alumni Network.

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