Two chances to hear CSO perform, one chance to sit in coming up - Arpil 24, 27

Cellist Wesley Baldwin featuredon Shostakovich concertoin both perfomances

PLAY ALONG WITH THE CSOEver wondered what it's like to play in a professional orchestra?Give it a try! Sit in with the pros on Sunday, May 11, when the CSO sponsors "Play Along With the CSO" during Chattanooga Market.If you played in high school or college and still have your horn or stringed instrument, bring it with you to First Tennessee Pavilion and play alongside the professionals. There will be three performance times from which to choose: 1, 2 or 3 p.m. Participants must be 18 or older. The $35 fee includes a free T-shirt, music and the opportunity to get some advance coaching from a CSO musician.The program will include "In the Hall of the Mountain King," the fourth movement of Greig's Suite No. 1 from "Peer Gynt"; Elgar's "Variation IX" from "Enigma Variations"; Copland's "Hoe-Down" from "Rodeo"; and Williams' "The Imperial March" from "Star Wars."To reserve a seat in the orchestra, call Sarah Marczynski at 423-267-8583, ext. 2100, or email smarczynski@chattanoogasymphony.org.

IF YOU GO"The Rite of Spring"Masterworks concert¦ When: 7:30 p.m. tonight, April 24¦ Where: Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St.¦ Admission: $19-$81.Shostakovich and Vivaldi¦ When: 3 p.m. Sunday, April 27¦ Where: Volkswagen Conference Center, 7351 Volkswagen Drive.¦ Admission: $25.¦ Phone: 423-267-8583.

Knoxville cellist Wesley Baldwin will be the featured soloist in two CSO performances this weekend, the first tonight, April 24, at the Tivoli Theatre and the second on Sunday afternoon, April 27, in the Volkswagen Conference Center. Kayoko Dan will conduct both concerts.

Baldwin is a professor in the University of Tennessee School of Music. He founded and directs the Tennessee Cello Workshop, an annual three-day program attended by 150 cellists of all ages from across the country.

Although his appearances with the CSO will require just a 90-minute drive down I-75, the cellist is in demand across the United States and Europe. As principal cellist of the New World Symphony he has toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina and Brazil. He has performed chamber music across the U.S. from Aspen, Colo., to Miami, as well as overseas in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica.

He is a founder of the Plymouth String Quartet and principal cellist of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. As part of the latter, he serves on the faculty of Wintergreen Academy and teaches during summer's Wintergreen Festival.

Baldwin will perform Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. with the CSO. Also on tonight's program is Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."

Shostakovich wrote the concerto in 1959 for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who memorized it in four days before its premiere with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. The concerto has four movements; the second through fourth movements played without a pause.

The concerto was conceived and composed before the deterioration of the composer's health and is, for the most part, a dark and introspective work, according to a CSO release.

"The Rite of Spring" was an avant-garde ballet and orchestral work when written in 1913.

Stravinsky described it as "a musical-choreographic work representing pagan Russia .... unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of spring," according to the CSO.

In Sunday's Volkswagen concert, Baldwin will repeat his performance of the Shostakovich concerto. The second portion of the program will feature the CSO chorus, directed by Darrin Hassevoort, performing Vivaldi's "Credo."

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