Columbia College Symphony of the Sierra Concert

Columbia College’s Symphony of the Sierra boasts several new faces amidst the familiar ones, and conductor, Mic Harper, feels confident about the upcoming free concert in Dogwood at Columbia College, at 3 p.m. on Saturday, December 14^th. “This season has held many pleasant surprises for me,” reports Harper, “and, the best of these has been the ongoing musical growth of the orchestra in combination with the influx of new musicians.” The startling thing has been how young these new members are. They range in age from eight to fifteen. “Bringing together any group of people to perform, while exciting, can be a daunting prospect,” says Harper, “but daring to mix such wide range of ages and skills is to jump off a musical cliff. The patience and skills of our older members has made all the difference. Thanks to the willingness and hard work of all concerned it has come to be more like flying than crashing.”

The wide-ranging repertoire promises to be a performance well worth hearing. The concert includes seasonal favorites, “Winter Wonderland and “Frosty the Snowman.” The orchestra’s string section will perform Shirl Jae Atwell’s “Drifen,” a vibrant, contemporary work for strings. The entire orchestra will play “Allemande and Bouree” by G.P. Telemann, Aaron Copland’s “Down a Country Lane,” John Barnes Chance’s “Variations on a Korean Folk Song, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Dubinushka,” and John Philip Sousa’s “Presidential Polonaise.”