AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)– The Augusta Symphony Orchestra is getting ready to open its 69th season. Maestro Dirk Meyer who was recently nationalized as a U.S. citizen, is here to tell us all about it.
“We called it American Perspective, and the inspiration behind it really was my process of becoming an American citizen, which is not at all easy. It’s easy on the American side, but my home country, Germany, didn’t want me to become a dual citizen. Long story short, it took 21 years to actually make it happen!”
And that process shaped Meyer’s vision for this season because he focused on amazing composers and musicians who came to the United States and really shaped the art scene we appreciate today.
“Almost all concerts feature music by an American, natural-born American composer, but also by an immigrant composer who became an American citizen. For example, when we open our season on September 22nd, we perform Barber’s Violin Concerto with Anastasia Petrunina,
our wonderful concertmaster, playing the solo part. Barber is, of course a well beloved American composer.”
“And we have a short piece by Igor Stravinsky, a Russian composer who later became French and later became an American citizen, actually! And finally, we close the program with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Mahler never became an American citizen, but he worked here as music director of the New York Philharmonic.”
All of the concerts mix well-known, beloved pieces with American music that is also very well known.
The Augusta Symphony Pops! series kicks off September 28th with a show called Country Hits. Another of the Pops! shows is hits from the 80’s.
That season of five concerts will end with American Wonders, which will transform the Miller into a 3-D movie theater.
“And the first half of this performance is a 3-D movie experience through the American national parks. And the orchestra performs beautiful music to go along with it. And in the second half, it’s a journey of American metropolitan areas. So, we perform Chicago and, you know, all these kind of fun stuff, and you get the 3-D movie experience at the same time.”
The opening concert of Augusta Symphony Orchestra‘s 69th season is coming up Friday, September 22nd in the Miller Theater. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at augustasymphony.com And they would love for you to buy the season ticket, but I bet you can also buy individual shows as well.
“Of course, there’s single tickets. There’s subscriptions for everything or for just the classical or just the pops. And then, of course, we have our gala in late January coming up. We can’t reveal yet what it’s about, but you know that it’s a fabulous event!”
