Pre-Concert Lecture with Charles McGuire

In preparation for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 22 in Hoover Auditorium, join Charles McGuire for a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the Fountain Inn Aigler Room.

Music from the British Isles – and music written about the British Isles – is often compared to the beautiful landscapes that abound there. As will be discussed in this pre-concert lecture, the three works that make up the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s Celtic Charisma program are no exception.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 3 in A minor, op. 56, popularly known as the Scottish (1842), was initially inspired by the romantic ruin of the Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh. Gerald Finzi’s A Severn Rhapsody (1923) evokes the gentle meandering of the English river through the beautiful Cotswolds region before it flows into Wales. Ina Boyle’s Elegy for Violincello and Orchestra (1913), while not formally associated with any particular region, may reflect the landscape around Enniskerry, County Wicklow, in Ireland, where she was born. We will discuss these three works, what they meant to their composers, and how their composers’ lives shaped how the works were written.

Charles Edward McGuire, Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College & Conservatory, studies the music of Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, sight-singing techniques, and the intersection of choral singing and moral reform movements. His publications include Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic Sol-fa Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Elgar’s Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative (Ashgate, 2002) and The Historical Dictionary of English Music (Scarecrow, 2011), which he co-authored with Oberlin colleague Professor Steven Plank. He is currently writing a history of British musical festivals. His video course, The Great Works of Sacred Music, is available from The Teaching Company.