UW Symphony Ends Season with Performance May 8

The University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra (UWSO) will end its season with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 8, in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall.

“Within the vast repertory of the orchestra, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler stand at the apex,” says Michael Griffith, director of orchestral activities at UW. “Found in his 10 symphonies are music’s most profound moments, yet contrasted by episodes of simple joy, biting sarcasm and monumental climaxes.”

Tickets are $19 for the public, $15 for senior citizens and $9 for students. A nominal processing fee will be charged for each ticket. To purchase tickets, visit the Performing Arts box office, call (307) 766-6666 or go online at www.tix.com/ticket-sales/uwyo/6984.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 is in the traditional four movements, but some of his symphonies are much longer, Griffith says.

“It opens simply, with sleigh bells in a steady, unhurried rhythm: the sound of Viennese horse-drawn carriages. This leisurely opening evolves into simple, folk-like melodies, yet deep emotion bursts forth often before the simplicity of the movement reasserts itself,” he adds.

The second movement is Mahler’s version of a symphonic scherzo, with more biting passages that become a satirical comment on the Viennese waltz. Never one to avoid extreme contrast, the movement’s middle section is a short, serene Ländler.

“The third movement is as deep and beautiful a melody as you will ever hear from an orchestra. As it evolves, it become more and more agitated, finally climaxing in a huge orchestral gesture before ending as simply as it began,” Griffith says.

The fourth and final movement introduces a soprano soloist. With words from the German poetry collection, “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” the song extolls the joys and simplicity of a heavenly afterlife. Far from Mahler’s usual overwhelming finales, the Fourth ends in a calm, gentle fashion, as the singer, then harp, low strings, bass clarinet and English horn fade into the distance.

While working on his Third Symphony in Austria’s spectacular Salzkammergut region, Mahler invited his young assistant conductor, Bruno Walter, to spend a few days with him. As Walter got off the lakeside steamboat and stepped onto the dock, Mahler spotted the gleam in his visitor’s eyes, which were transfixed by the awesome peaks and crags of the Austrian Alps.

“You need not pay any attention to them,” said Mahler. “I’ve already composed them into my new symphony.”

The concert will open with the ever-popular “Festive Overture” by Dmitri Shostakovich. Tanzanian American soprano Elizabeth Hanje will then join the orchestra for a beautiful song by Richard Strauss titled “Ruhe, meine Seele!”

Hanje is the first prize winner of the 2024 Eleanor McCollum Concert of Arias at Houston Grand Opera. She was a winner in both the 2023 Duncan Williams Voice Competition and the 2022 George Shirley Vocal Competition. In 2021, she received the Richard Miller Award for Fine Singing and a Young Arts Award. She was seen as Ernestina in “L’occasione fa il ladro,” Comedian in Matthew Recio’s “Puppy Episode” and Lyra in Melissa Dunphy’s “Alice Tierney at Oberlin,” which she reprised with Opera Columbus in 2022.

A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and Oberlin College, Hanje is currently a studio artist at Houston Grand Opera.

For more information, email Griffith at symph@uwyo.edu.