The Chelsea Symphony's May 18 & 19 Concerts Feature Courtney Bryan's SANCTUM

The Chelsea Symphony's (TCS) May 18 &19 concerts, Rebirth, of their 2018-2019 season Resolution which reflects on social action, features the great controversial work, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, called by the composer "a Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism."

Dmitri Shostakovich premiered his Symphony No. 5 in 1937 in Leningrad. The work, particularly the fourth movement, utilizes musical material from his own song, Vozrozhdenije, composed just before the symphony, which sets a poem by Alexander Pushkin commonly known as Rebirth, which is the inspiration for this concert series title. The denunciation of his work by the Soviet government is well documented, however, and what follows the premiere is mired in controversy.

Beginning both concerts is Courtney Bryan's Sanctum, originally written for the American Composers Orchestra in 2015. The work by the New Orleans native is for orchestra and recorded sound and explores the sonic atmospheres of improvisation in Holiness-preaching traditions. Bryan drew inspiration from recorded sermons, The Praying Slave Lady by Pastor Shirley Caesar, The Eagle Stirs His Nest by Reverend C. L. Franklin, and Reverend Charles Albert Tindley's hymn, Stand By Me. Included in the recorded sound are the voices of Marlene Pinnock and of activists in Ferguson, Missouri from 2014. Sanctum is Bryan's artistic response to recent events of police brutality.

Saturday evening's concert features the Dvo k's Violin Concerto in A Minor with Bryn Digney as soloist. Sunday afternoon's concert presents bass trombonist Owen Caprell in Eric Ewazen's Rhapsody for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra.

Last season's concerts featured an Earth Day celebration performing John Luther Adams's Become Ocean under the whale in the American Museum of Natural History, which was hailed by Lucid Culture as an epic, intense, mightily enveloping concert." The Chelsea Symphony is also known for their outreach concerts with the inmates at Rikers Island. TCS has performed as the whole orchestra and small wind or string ensembles to the facility and continues to engage with the inmates several times each year.

Offering seven concert series from September 2018 through June 2019, each performance in The Chelsea Symphony's 2018/19 Resolution season features orchestral works with a focus on social action.

Every concert by The Chelsea Symphony features soloists, composers, and conductors taken from the ensemble. This is a collective of New York City professional freelancers coming together to create meaningful, self-governed concerts a unique model in the classical world.

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Limited day-of tickets are available at the door for a suggested donation of $20.