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Opening the concert is Canzon a 12, Gabrieli’s dazzling work for brass. Mozart’s elegant and delightful piece for strings follows. In the second half, the entire orchestra will come together for Bruckner’s great monument to the symphonic form, his spiritual and contemplative Symphony No. 7 in E Major.

Maestro Curry, who is also the North Carolina Symphony’s Interim Artistic Planning Advisor, is looking forward to this program of awe-inspiring music. “I’ve waited for 27 years to conduct the Bruckner,” says Curry. “His Seventh and Eighth Symphonies are the two Mt. Everests in my musical life. One must have a spiritual calm and serenity to conduct Bruckner. Until I could define this for myself, I knew I couldn’t do it. Now I know I’ve reached that point in my life. I was in a beautiful Baroque church in Siena, Italy and suddenly heard Bruckner in my ear. That’s when I knew it was time, that I am ready.”

Interestingly, all three pieces on the program are firsts for the North Carolina Symphony on the Classical stage. Eine kleine Nachtmusik was once performed at Regency Park, but Curry was surprised to discover it had never been played on the Classical Series. “It’s one of those popular, familiar works that is done so often that we stop doing it. But it is a wonderful, delightful piece and balances nicely with the Bruckner.”

Another unusual feature of this concert is the inclusion of four Wagnerian tubas which will be heard in Bruckner’s Symphony. “This is an instrument that was developed for Wagner’s Ring cycle,” says Curry. “Its sound, which is a combination of the tuba and the trombone, is something that Wagner thought was missing from the orchestra. Bruckner used the instrument in the Seventh as a sort of homage to Wagner, a composer he admired very much.” Curry anticipates that the unusual sound of these instruments will be particularly striking in sonorous Meymandi Concert Hall.

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