Tag Archives: Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

The ASO is hiring a new Music Director and needs Little Rock’s music lovers to help!

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This weekend starts ASO’s first year of guest conductors as they see and hear which ones might be the best fit for ASO, the orchestra and our audience.

As they begin their search, they do want audience involvement. Please let them know what you think of the concert experience. This search will be a little different than last time. They want only the best candidates on their podium, and they want to honor their desire for confidentiality.

This means, some of the conductors audiences will see and hear will be candidates for the Music Director position and some will not. All conductors will bring their unique strengths, gifts and experience to our concert stage. The orchestra will likely sound different with each conductor. Please let them know what you think of the sound of the orchestra with each conductor. They want to know if you liked it and if you would like to see this conductor again.

This is a unique opportunity for all of us. Once the ASO hires a Music Director, that person will craft the sound we hear each concert.

Please take time to visit the street level Box Office before concert, at intermission, or after the concert to pick up a survey.

You can return the survey to the same location or mail it in to P.O. Box 7328, Little Rock, AR 72217.

2019-2020 ASO season kicks off this weekend

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra presents the first concert of the 2019-2020 Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks season: Scheherazade, Saturday, September 28th at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, September 29th at 3:00 p.m. at the Robinson Center.

The ASO collaborates with ACANSA Arts Festival of the South to present American trio, Time for Three, an ensemble that “defies any traditional genre classification,” and prestigious conductor, JoAnn Falletta. The concert will also feature Ravel’s La Valse, Higdon’s Concerto 4-3 and will conclude with Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful musical telling of the Arabian Nights legends, Scheherazade. The Masterworks Series is sponsored by the Stella Boyle Smith Trust.

Interim Artistic Director, Geoffrey Robson gives these notes: “This program, led by distinguished conductor Joann Falletta, is vivid, lively, and bursting with character. Ravel’s La Valse was conceived as a ballet and a tribute to the Viennese waltz. Its relentless, adrenaline-soaked rhythmic drive pushes the orchestra to its limits and by design almost breaks apart at the finish. American composing phenom Jennifer Higdon wrote her Concerto 4-3 for the group performing it, Time for Three. The music is steeped in bluegrass, reflecting the eclectic tastes of the performers, who perform with an edgy and multicultural style. Last on the program is the great symphonic favorite Scheherazade, based on the Arabian Nights folk tales. Four movements of colorful music tell four stories, connected by themes for the dangerous king and the brilliant storyteller Scheherazade herself.”

Tickets are $16, $36, $57, and $70; active duty military and student tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org; at the Robinson Center street-level box office beginning 90 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 1. All Arkansas students grades K-12 are admitted to Sunday’s matinee free of charge with the purchase of an adult ticket using the Entergy Kids’ Ticket, downloadable at https://www.arkansassymphony.org/freekids.

Concert in memory of longtime ASO violinist Eric Hayward presented tonight

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Eric and Christopher Hayward

On Tuesday, September 17, in the first concert of Festival of the Senses’ 2019-20 performing arts season, a string ensemble will play Tchaikovsky’s celebrated Piano Trio in A Minor and a new piano quartet, “The Black Rose,” composed by Little Rock’s Dustin Yoder in memory of Eric Hayward of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra (ASO).

The free concert will be held at 7:00 p.m. at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 4106 JFK Boulevard in North Little Rock, and will feature ASO Concertmaster Kiril Laskarov on violin, Stephen Feldman on cello, May Tsao-Lim on piano, and Eric Hayward’s son, Christopher Hayward, on the viola. A reception will be held in the parish hall following the performance.

“Eric Hayward was our friend and colleague in the Arkansas Symphony and we miss him dearly,” says Kiril Laskarov. “Eric loved chamber music, so we thought the best way to honor his memory was to present this program. We combine one of the greatest chamber music pieces in the literature, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, which was dedicated to another great musician, the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, with the world premiere of a piano quartet entitled ‘The Black Rose,’ which was composed by Eric’s student Dustin Yoder and will feature Chris Hayward, Eric’s son, on the viola.”

Eric Hayward (1954-2018) was an associate concertmaster and principal second violinist with the ASO for 38 years and a founding member of Arkansas’ premier string quartet, the Quapaw String Quartet. Following his death in 2018, the ASO established a principal second violin chair in his memory. He held degrees from Oregon State and Northwestern Universities and studied at the University of Iowa, taught violin and viola privately and in a number of local schools, and played in various concerts at St. Luke’s since before the inception of Festival of the Senses.

Christopher Hayward began his musical education following in his father’s footsteps on violin but later changed to the viola. A 2006 graduate of Little Rock Central High School, he attended Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri, and is now married and lives and works in Maumelle. He has played in the Arkansas Youth Orchestra, All-Region Orchestra, All-State Orchestra, and the Missouri All-Collegiate Orchestra.

Dustin Yoder, currently resident composer for WAMA, the music and arts camp of Little Rock’s Wildwood Park for the Arts, is a local musician and former student of Eric Hayward. He was a 2015 violin finalist for the High School Honors Performance Series Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He teaches private lessons locally, plays part-time in the ASO, has composed scores for a number of short films, and is a self-taught painter.

THE PROGRAM

Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50 – Pezzo Elegiaco
  Dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein (1835−1881)
by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840−1893)

Piano Quartet in C Minor, “The Black Rose”
  Dedicated to Eric Hayward (1954−2018)
by Dustin Yoder (b. 1996)

Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50 – A. Tema con Variazioni; B. Finale e Coda
by Tchaikovsky

Help the ASO with an acoustic test at Robinson Center

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The ASO in rehearsal at Robinson Center

School’s back.

It is test time!

Tonight you can take a test that has no wrong answer. It requires no studying.

ASO is conducting an amplified acoustic test and tuning of the Robinson Center on Tuesday, August 27, with a goal of optimizing the concert and listening experience for our Pops Live! series and other concerts with amplified instruments or voice.

The orchestra will be on stage and the ASO needs you to be in the house to get a realistic sonic environment, and to provide feedback on your listening experience. You will have a rare chance to peek behind the curtain at a working rehearsal, where you will hear ASO work on selections chosen to test the venue for an optimized orchestra experience, including two vocalists, a sneak peek at an upcoming Pops Live! Concert, and maybe even a Holiday selection!

This free, general admission event is limited to ASO season ticket holders, Concert Members, SHARP members, donors, members of the ASO’s youth and education programs, and their invited guests. If you have friends you would like to introduce to the orchestra, please invite them! We will ask all attendees to complete a very short survey about your listening experience. We want people to spread throughout the hall so we have listeners in every section, so we can best serve our entire audience. Please RSVP for you and your guests at ArkansasSymphony.org/acoustic-test

The orchestra will work in an empty hall from 7 p.m., the audience will be allowed in to take their seats at 7:45 p.m., and the open rehearsal/test will begin at 8 p.m. and will last about an hour.