The Northwest Civic Orchestra returns to the stage on Saturday, April 20 for its spring concert at Northwest College. The performance begins at 7 p.m. in the Nelson Performing Arts Auditorium. General admission tickets are $12.00, tickets for seniors 62 and up are $8.00, and students and children are admitted free of charge. Tickets will be sold at the door on the evening of the concert, and a reception with refreshments will follow afterward.
New to this year’s event is free admission to the dress rehearsal for seniors and K-12 students who would like to enjoy music but may not otherwise be able to attend the evening concert. Doors to the NPA Auditorium open at 11 a.m. for the rehearsal. As this is a working rehearsal, those in attendance are asked to be respectful and quiet. Younger children should be accompanied by a parent.
The featured soloist is violinist Megan Karls, newly appointed Concertmaster of the Wyoming Symphony who also performs frequently as guest Concertmaster for the Bozeman, Billings, and Butte Symphonies, as well as the Intermountain Opera Company, and String Orchestra of the Rockies. She is the first woman in classical music to be awarded the Mountain Arts Council’s Artist Innovation Award, largely for her debut video album entitled “Decommissioned: Solo Violin in Cold War Relics,” filmed live in military structures across northern Montana.
Karls makes her home in Great Falls, Montana where she performs as Co-Concertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony, and with their artists-in-residence, the Cascade String Quartet. As a chamber musician, she has appeared as a guest artist across the nation and spends her summers performing with the Britt Music in El Salvador, and indigenous communities in Mexico as a Teaching Artist. In 2015, Karls received the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award on behalf of the Great Falls Symphony and Public Schools Collaborative Partnership. She holds degrees with honors in violin performance and political science from Lawrence University and the University of Iowa.
The concert presented by the Northwest Civic Orchestra includes the work of notable composers Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonin Dvorak, Johannes Brahms, and Georges Bizet.
Among the pieces being presented are Beethoven’s “Overture to Coriolan”, Mozart’s “Violin Concerto No. 5”, Dvorak’s “Slavonic Dance Op. 46 No. 8”, Brahms’ “Symphony No. 3, Movement 3”, and Bizet’s “L’Arliesienne Suite No. 2”.
The orchestra is conducted by Maurine Akin.