Taking giant 'Steppes' forward

POTSDAM — Orchestra of Northern New York director/conductor Kenneth Andrews likes to begin each season with a large, challenging performance. This year, he found inspiration in the expansive steppes of Central Asia and other areas in Russia.

The 21st season of the Orchestra of Northern New York, "Russian Nights," opens Saturday evening with a program of all Russian music, mainly from the late 1800s.

"It's a very exciting program," Mr. Andrews said. "It's some of the greatest Russian music of all time."

Alexander Borodin (1833 to 1887) wrote "Steppes" in 1880. The orchestral work is also called a symphonic poem.

"It's an incredibly vast landscape and Borodin has tried to capture that," Mr. Andrews said. "It uses two main melodic ideas. They interact, and finally, at the end they come together."

The concert begins with Tchaikovsky's "Polonaise," a cheerful, energetic dance from his opera "Eugene Onegin."

It will be followed by "Steppes" and the 1887 work "Capriccio Espagnol" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

According to a program note when presented in 2005 at the Kennedy Center in New York City, Tchaikovsky, who saw the score before the "Capriccio" premiere, told Rimsky-Korsakov in a letter, "Your 'Spanish Capriccio' is a colossal masterpiece of instrumentation, and you may regard yourself as the greatest master of the present day."

"A lot of these composers interacted, so the musical lineage comes through," Mr. Andrews said.

Mr. Andrews will close the concert with Igor Stravinsky's legendary suite from his 1919 "Firebird" ballet.

Mr. Andrews, who founded the orchestra and recently retired as music director of Syracuse Symphony's youth orchestra, said this year's opening concert is particularly challenging.

"It's a massive amount of music and extremely difficult," he said. "And we're on a short rehearsal schedule because we're a regional orchestra."

The orchestra is made up of about 65 musicians, many of them Crane School of Music professors and students. It also contains musicians from areas such as Utica, New Jersey, Toronto, Montreal and New York City.

"They come in on Thursday night," Mr. Andrews said. "We have three three-hour rehearsals. People have to come prepared. It's a challenge to create a unified sound in three days."

'RUSSIAN NIGHTS': THE DETAILS

WHAT: Opening concert of the 21st season of the Orchestra of Northern New York, featuring the program "Russian Nights."

WHEN/WHERE: 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Helen M. Hosmer Hall, SUNY Potsdam.

COST: $18 for adults, $16 for senior citizens, $10 for students and free for children age 12 and under.

MORE INFO: Call the orchestra's business office at 267-3251.

On the Web: www.orchestraofnorthernnewyork.org