WASHINGTON, IL -- The Heartland Festival Orchestra took a trip "To the Moon & Beyond," for its October 19 concert at Five Points auditorium. It was a most unusual concert, filled with modern symphonic music, some accompanied by videos on a big screen.
Gustav Holst's The Planets began the program, with videos of Mars shown as the "Mars" piece was played. The suite commemorates all the planets except Earth and Pluto, with modern, moody music for each planet.
Then the famous brief but powerful "Zarathustra Fanfare" from Richard Strauss, the theme of the film "2001 A Space Odyssey" and the lilting"Music of the Spheres Waltz" from Josef Strauss opened the second half of the program, opposites like Mars and Venus.
"From the Earth to the Moon and Beyond" by James A Beckel Jr. followed, accompanied by narration from Nicholas Maloof and a beautiful and lively video showing the beginning of the universe to the moon landing.
This piece was commissioned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.
Finally, themes from Star Wars and Star Trek concluded the program.
The modern music was well played by the orchestra, but there were two small flaws in the presentation -- a long dangling golden microphone in front of the big screen, and an annoying very bright light from the stage, there to provide more light for a musician but shining into the audience as well.
These small flaws did not mar this creative and interesting program, however,
-- Elaine Hopkins
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