M E D I A  A D V I S O R Y

May 3, 2016 – Richmond Virginia The Richmond Symphony will close the 2015-16 Season with Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé on Saturday, May 14 at 8pm and Sunday, May 15 at 3pm. The music, composed for a three-part ballet, is based on the mythological Greek love story of Daphnis and Chloé and is considered some of the most beautiful and evocative of the twentieth century. Joining the Symphony will be the Richmond Symphony Chorus under the direction of Erin R. Freeman. The Altria Masterworks concerts will be led by Music Director Steven Smith and held at the Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Arts Center.

The beginning of the concert features two American works from the first half of the twentieth century: Charles Griffes’s White Peacock, a composition from the 1910s and heavily influenced by French impressionist composers such as Ravel; and Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1, a piece with aspects of a romantic lyricism similar to that found in Daphnis.

Tickets start at $10 online at richmondsymphony.com or by calling 1.800.514 ETIX.
Altria Masterworks are free for children 18 and under with a paid adult ticket. College student single tickets are $7.

The series sponsor is Altria. This concert is sponsored by The Richmond Symphony Orchestra League. The media sponsor is Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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About the Richmond Symphony
Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus and more than 260 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 200,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, radio broadcasts, and educational outreach programs. The Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. www.richmondsymphony.com

About the Richmond Symphony Chorus
James Erb organized the all-volunteer Richmond Symphony Chorus in 1971 for a December performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, under guest conductor Robert Shaw. For 36 years, Erb continued to direct and build the Chorus to reflect the Symphony’s high standards. Erin Freeman assumed leadership of the Chorus at the start of its 2007–08 season. The repertoire for its selected volunteer membership has included most of the standard repertoire for chorus and orchestra: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion and Mass in B Minor, Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 and Choral Fantasy, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Requiem settings by Mozart, Brahms, Verdi and Faure, Mahler’s Symphony No.2, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and all of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Over the years they have also sung shorter choral-orchestral works by Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Delius, Debussy, Barber, Britten, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen and Luigi Dallapiccola. Recent projects have included a performance and recording of Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under the direction of JoAnn Falletta, a performance with the Richmond Symphony in the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and a recreation of the Chorus’s inaugural performance of Missa Solemnis.