FREE CHAMBER CONCERT DRAWS CAPACITY CROWD 

The Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra (FSO) played a free chamber concert to a capacity crowd at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Sunday April 6th, thanks to a community grant from the Cumberland Community Foundation.

The importance of such programs are reflected in the exact reasons the FSO performed the Free Chamber Concert in the first place:

To introduce new audiences to the music

It pleases the FSO to no end to see so many new faces. The enamoured crowd only served to spur the musicians on through their performances with even more enthusiasm. Programs like this also creates more awareness of the professional talents available in our very own Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra.

To generate renewed interest in the symphony

Programs such as this offers the regular FSO patrons alternative programs with alternative repertoire they might not otherwise hear within the confines of the regular season concert series. Many patrons took this opportunity to whet their appetite for the upcoming season finale concert and official sanctioned event of the 2008 Dogwood Festival, “Beethoven and Stravinsky,” at Methodist University Reeves Auditorium on Saturday, April 26, at 8:00PM.

To spotlight the professional players themselves

Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that programs such as the chamber concert serve to spotlight the talents of the FSO musicians themselves. The level of musicianship within the FSO is continually rising and has grown by leaps and bounds wtihin this 51^st season alone. A different setting, such as a chamber concert offering small ensembles to play in addition to full orchestral pieces, offers a refreshing change of pace for the musicians and the audience.

The smaller ensembles played the first half of the program; with the entire Fayetteville Symphony Chamber Orchestra played Mozart's “Overture to Don Giovanni” and Prokofiev's “Classical Symphony, Op. 25 (Symphony No. 1) (IV Movements)” the second half of the program.