POCATELLO — The Idaho State-Civic Symphony is fast approaching the end of the 2012-2013 concert season celebrating our spectacular home, the Stephens Performing Arts Center, and its incomparable Jensen Grand Concert Hall. The ISU Chamber Orchestra also calls the Center its performance home and its end-of-year performance will take place, along with that of the Symphony, on Friday evening, April 26th; the Chamber ensemble will perform in the Rotunda at 6:00 p.m. and the Symphony concert will follow at 6:30 p.m. Please note this earlier starting time for the Symphony concert. We encourage symphony patrons to attend the ensemble’s pre-concert event, free of charge, in support of these young musicians before taking their seats in the concert hall.
As our patrons are aware, this season was to be a transition year for which we were unlikely to have a full-time conductor. After the resignation of ISU’s Assistant Professor, Dr. Chung Park, the university began its international search for a person to fill the teaching/conducting position as well as initiating efforts to obtain the services of either an interim conductor or a series of guest conductors for the approaching season. The answer to the dilemma came to us in the form of an offer from Dr. George Adams, member of the ISU Music Department faculty, Principal Bassoon for the ISCS, and a retired orchestra conductor. Dr. Adams generously volunteered to step down temporarily from his much-enjoyed orchestral player’s position, and proposed not only to take on the position of Interim Conductor, but to forego the usual conductor/music director’s prerogative to program the concerts, instead accepting all of the pre-set programming and guest artist arrangements for this season. His willingness to do so provided a solution that not only saved a great deal of time and money that would have gone into re-programming and additional printing and distribution costs, but also provided orchestra members with stability for the season.
We were fortunate indeed to have a conductor of Dr. Adams’ experience right here, willing and able to take on the task. Dr. Adams’ career as a conductor began with a position as Associate Conductor of the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra and as Acting Music Director of the Brazos Sinfonietta, both in Bryan College Station, Texas. He then served as Music Director/Conductor of the Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra of Natchitoches, Louisiana, where, under his leadership, the orchestra developed into an ensemble that achieved regional recognition for its performances. He also served as Director of Orchestral Studies and Associate Professor of Music at Northwestern State University. He was Music Director and Conductor of the Idaho Falls Symphony from 1999 until he decided to “hang up his baton” in 2010 and continue his performance and teaching careers.
We’re very grateful to him for dusting off that baton and guiding us through the year, and are therefore holding a post-concert dessert reception in the Rotunda, with no-host bar, to honor him for his support of the Symphony Association, ISU, and the orchestra itself. The reception will be open to all members of the concert audience free of charge. Please join us in thanking him and our musicians for the enjoyment and inspiration they’ve provided us this year.
Please contact the ISU Box Office at 282-3595 or Vickers Western Stores at 237-5700 for tickets.