DePauw Symphony Presents 'Measure for Measure: Shakespeare-Inspired Music for Orchestra' Sunday as Part of ArtsFest

October 26, 2005

October 26, 2005, Greencastle, Ind. - The DePauw Symphony Orchestra performs its second concert of the 2005-06 season this Sunday, October 30 at 3 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium of the Performing Arts Center. Entitled "Measure for Measure: Shakespeare-Inspired Music for Orchestra," the concert is free and open to the public and is a part the University’s Shakespearean-themed ArtsFest. The program will feature music that displays William Shakespeare's influence on four composers from the baroque, romantic and the twentieth-century time periods.

"The influence of Shakespeare's writings eventually became quite profound on the world of classical music, but only after his plays were translated into various languages," says Orcenith Smith, director of the DePauw Symphony Orchestra. "Once composers could understand his characters, plots and range of dramatic aesthetic, they eagerly wanted to portray those ideas in current musical language and be a part of the Shakespeare legacy."

Opening the program will be English baroque composer Henry Purcell's incidental music from The Fairy Queen followed by the Overture to the opera Oberon by German romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber. Russian music will also be well represented through composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's famous overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet as well as Three Fragments from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by twentieth-century Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

"All of these works show some impact of Shakespeare's rendering of a story, though some of the ideas are not as specifically related,” according to Smith. “Whereas the Tchaikovsky attempts to summarize the family conflict, love and tragedy of the Romeo and Juliet story, the Shostakovich is based on a short story by Russian author Nicolai Leskov, who decided to name the central tragic figure of his story Lady Macbeth on his more modern realization of a Shakespearean character."

The one-hour concert by the DePauw Symphony Orchestra is just one of many musical offerings by the university’s School of Music during ArtsFest. There will also be two Shakespearean themed concerts by acclaimed countertenor Steven Rickards on Monday, October 31 and Saturday, November 5, as well as a special Shakespearean recital by the School of Music’s vocal faculty and talented students on Thursday, November 3. All of these events are also free and open to the public.

Visit the DePauw School of Music online here. Learn more about ArtsFest in this previous story, and view the complete ArtsFest 2005 schedule by clicking here.

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