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Tango, Dance Music Highlight ASO Performances

Dance music best described as “hypnotic rhythms” will highlight a pair of upcoming performances by the Alma Symphony Orchestra.

The ASO will perform the colorful and invigorating international dance music of Johann Strauss Jr., Bela Bartók, Manual de Falla, Emmanuel Chabrier and Astor Piazzolla at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18 in the Remick Heritage Center at Alma College.

Tickets are $10 for adults and free for youth 18 and under. Seating is reserved. For more information or to reserve tickets, call the Heritage Center Box Office at (989) 463-7304 from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The program, titled “Hypnotic Rhythms,” also features music by Folias, a mid-Michigan based duo that consists of flutist Carmen Maret and classical guitarist Andrew Bergeron and specializes in tango music.   

“The concert starts out a bit more refined, but by the last dance it is much more wild,” says ASO Director Murray Gross.  “It’s all exciting and appealing music.” 

The concert opens with Strauss’s famous and jovial “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” waltz, considered most emblematic of Viennese waltzes after its premiere in 1867.  Following this piece is Bartók’s “Romanian Dances,” which comprises six rhythmic folk dances first transcribed for small orchestra in 1917,and is “a little more down to earth than Strauss,” says Gross. 

The program continues with the hypnotic and lively “Habanera” by Chabrier.  Based on the Cuban habanera dance, Chabrier first published the song in 1885 for piano and transcribed it three years later for orchestra.  Completing the first half of the concert is Manuel de Falla’s “Suite from ‘The Three Corned Hat.’” Based on the classic novel by Antonio Pedro de Alarcon, the suite incorporates numerous Spanish dance and musical styles that capture the comic nature of the book and Spanish culture and art. 

The second portion of the program commences with an arrangement of Piazzolla’s “Milonga del Angel,” written by Folias’s Bergeron. This Piazzolla piece was one of two tangos composed for the 1962 play in which an angel comes to save the impoverished residents of Buenos Aires. Between Piazzolla’s pieces is music by Folias.

Concluding the concert is Piazzolla’s “Tangazo,” which was written in 1969 to reflect the urban life of Buenos Aires.  Piazzolla’s “nuevo tango” music is “something everyone can enjoy,” says Gross. 

The performances are sponsored in part by The Loraine and Melinese Reuter Foundation, through the Comerica Charitable Services Group.

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Alma College’s nationally recognized Model United Nations program has won top honors for 16 consecutive years (1997–2012) — the longest active winning streak of any college or university in the nation. Alma College’s all-time 30 “outstanding delegation” awards are the most of any college or university in the 90-year history of the conference.

 

Graduate Profile

April LaCroix

April LaCroix
Graduation: 2005
Major: POE: Environmental Policy and Natural Science

Are you one of those students who struggle tooth and nail for a chance to live in Wright Hall? If so, give a green thumbs-up to Alma College alumna April LaCroix ’05.

Utilizing her knowledge of economics and sustainability, she helped Wright Hall become our first environmentally friendly residence hall.

“At Alma, I was able to immediately apply what I learned in the classroom to my volunteer work, research and personal life,” says LaCroix. “It’s the kind of school where you don’t have to wait to start changing the world.”