Community orchestra’s concert to honor Apollo anniversary

MADISON – Madison City Community Orchestra’s fall concert, “New Discoveries: 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing,” will commemorate Madison Countians’ contribution to space exploration.

In designing the program, MCCO Director Sandy Weisner realized Madison and Huntsville’s abundance of aerospace workers. “Many orchestra members are actual rocket scientists and spend their lives working on advancement of technologies to better our nation. They’re extremely excited about honoring the past and future missions of our journey into space,” she said.

The concert on Oct. 20 will open at 7 p.m. in James Clemens High School Auditorium. “James Clemens Auditorium is a very nice facility with great acoustics,” Weisner said. “We’re very thankful to be able to perform there for our concert.”

The concert is free. The orchestra welcomes the public, including families together on an outing.

The concert’s first section will be “Exploration Fantasy.” “From the beginning of time, space has been an enigma and exploration only dreamed about,” Weisner said. “From early Greek mythology to modern cinema, space exploration has always been a goal of man.”

This section’s music will include “sprach Zarathustra” (fanfare for “2001: A Space Odyssey”) and “Triumph of the Argonauts” with soloist Alyssa Weisner on flute.

In the “Exploration Realized” section, “man’s leap into flight and space exploration has gone from feathers on wooden structures, fixed wing planes of the Wright Brothers, early modern airplanes in the great wars to the leap into space with the Saturn Five Rocket and Apollo Space Capsule to shuttle missions and privatized flights into space,” Sandy Weisner said.

Selections will include “Star Trek” with soloist Robert Price on horn, “Fly Me to the Moon” with tenor saxophone soloist Kevin McGrath and “Apollo 13” with trumpet soloist Jeanette Vega.

In “Exploration of the Future,” space exploration’s next step is reaching out to neighboring planets. The orchestra will perform “Mars” and “Jupiter.”

Scott Everton is serving as narrator. Madison historian John Rankin and Apollo Missions engineer will relate his experiences. Weisner also thanked James Clemens Tech Department for operating sound and lights.

“A big thank-you goes to Keith Anderson and James Clemens Band for using their stands and percussion equipment,” she said.

For fundraising starting Dec. 8, the orchestra will sell “2019 MCCO Cook Book” for $15. This cookbook contains delicious holiday and party recipes from orchestra musicians and friends.

For more information, visit mccorchestra.org.