You and 5 guests will join us on Friday, June 8, 2007 in the Theater Foundation box for this memorable show that marks the end of the season for the California Consort Chamber Orchestra. 

This concert is the second annual "Art and Music" collaboration between the orchestra and a local school. It features art created by students at Thompson Middle School in Murrieta as they listened to Vivaldi's "Summer" during their art classes. During the concert, the artwork will be digitally projected behind the orchestra as they play the Vivaldi composition.

Our season finale’s program illustrates the four basic elements: air, water, earth and fire. Audiences worldwide love Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Since this concert is in June, we will perform “Summer”. Vivaldi writes: “Exhausted by the Heat”, “Gentle Breezes”, “The North Wind”, “Flies and Wasps”, “Thunder”, and “Summer’s Violent Weather”.

Besides “Messiah”, probably Handel’s second most famous piece is his Water Music. In the summer of 1717 the King George of England requested a concert on the River Thames, and Handel was commissioned to write “Water Music” for winds and strings. With members of the court and musicians accommodated on barges, the evening’s entertainment went on until the early hours of the morning, and was a huge success.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 59 is known as the Fire Symphony. The attributed title was thought to refer to the fiery nature of the composition, particularly the rather unusually spirited first movement and the brief, but energetic, last movement, which features prominent horn fanfares and dazzling runs on the strings. However, the nickname could also have come from the fact that several movements were performed between acts of the play Der Feuersbrunst (The Conflagration) that was performed at Esterhazy Palace in Hungary in 1774.