Why you will love THE RING
1. You love huge, intoxicating music filling up a beautiful hall with incredible acoustics.
Wagner used music as a means of conquering and entrancing. This phenomenal concert will fill Hill Auditorium with some of the most dramatic music in the classical repertoire.
2. Large numbers of vocalists blending with an orchestra makes you swoon.
Vocalists from Pioneer, Huron, Greenhills, Ypsilanti and South Lyon high schools join the orchestra for the choruses from Wagners Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin with the male chorus Measure for Measure providing the resonant bass.
3. You want to hear one of the most beautiful, difficult piano concertos ever written.
Soloist Arthur Greene, UM piano professor and former artistic ambassador to Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia says, With Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto we experience the ultimate in romance, sensuality, passion and perfection of musical form.
4. You grew up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Whats Opera, Doc? Legions of kids and their parents have gotten to know Wagner with Bugs and Elmer Fudd. No one will know if youre secretly picturing Bugs in blonde Brunnhilde braids or hear Elmer Fudd singing Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.
5. Your high schooler attends Pioneer, Huron, Greenhills, Ypsilanti or South Lyon High School.
We invite students at these five high schools, which are all represented in the Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin choruses, to attend this concert free of charge. Celebrate talented area high school singers!
6. You are a voice or piano teacher or student.
Voice and piano teachers and students can get discounted tickets to The Ring . Simply contact the ASO office at 734/994-4801 to take advantage of this offer. Discount applies to any $24-$46 ticket; additional tickets for friends and family are available at regular prices.
7. Celebrate Ann Arbor
The Ring is the first in a season full of local connections and collaborations. Local high schools, Measure for Measure and UM professor Greene all make this concert a great way to celebrate the extraordinary talent in our town.
8. One word: Tolkien.
The connection between Wagners The Ring and Tolkiens Lord of the Rings (obvious as it may seem) has been a bit hush hush. Tolkien himself said both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased, but he did undeniably make an informal study of Die Walkure not long before beginning work on his Ring trilogy. Their relationship was further strengthened in the films, in which composer Howard Shores Wagnerian atmosphere drew from but didnt copy the original.
The Ring is dedicated to Kyle Mills, the A²SOs 31-year-old French hornist who died in a tragic plane crash in May. Kyle was on a leave of absence to play principal horn with Montanas Great Falls Symphony when the plane carrying him and his fiance Jenny Sengpiel to a tandem skydiving lesson crashed only moments off the runway. The lesson was a birthday present from Jenny to Kyle; they had planned to marry in August. Kyle was a native of Grand Rapids and a graduate of Indiana University and The Manhattan School of Music. Jenny was Great Falls' principal oboe and a member of the Chinook Winds Quintet.
©2002-2008
Ann Arbor Symphony
220 E Huron St., Suite 470
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
(734) 994-4801