Thrills and chills in weekend of Halloween Pops concerts - Oct. 30 & 31

Robbins Pops
Trick-or-treat through a ghoulish graveyard of unnerving melodies

Halloween: The Concert
Friday, October 30th ’Äì 8:00 pm
Saturday, October 31st ’Äì 8:00 pm

Edmonton, AB ’Ķ Expect the unexpected when your Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO), conductor Bruce Hangen, and a creepy cast haunt the concert hall with a frightening mix of music. In this Halloween weekend of concerts, the orchestra will send all the right chills down your spine, while filling the Francis Winspear Centre for Music with a spooky spirit.

These ghoulish performances with eerie special effects will see a number of musicians from the strings to the brass dressed up in cryptic costumes, performing suspenseful selections from Phantom of the Opera, Psycho, and Pictures at an Exhibition. Dukas’Äô The Sorcerer’Äôs Apprentice and Saint-Saˆ´ns’Äô Danse macabre are also daunting highlights in these concerts of grave consequences.

Wear your most spooktacular Halloween costumes and trick-or-treat down to the Winspear Centre Box Office for tickets. Ticket prices range from $24 ’Äì $79 (agency fees apply). Purchase by phone at (780) 428-1414 or 1-800-563-5081, or online at www.edmontonsymphony.com.

The next Robbins Pops performances ’Äì the most anticipated of the season ’Äì take place on December 18th and 19th. Steve Reineke returns to conduct our yearly tidings of carols, light classics, and sing-a-longs in A Very Merry Pops.

Thank you to our generous series’Äô sponsor, Bill and Mary Jo Robbins, and our season media sponsor CBC.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, marking its 58th season in 2009-2010, has taken its place as one of Canada's foremost orchestral ensemble. Its current roster includes 56 musicians from Canada and around the world, performing a wide-ranging repertoire from the great classical masterworks to pops and children's concerts. The presence of the orchestra and its enrichment of the community's quality of life are key elements in the stature and profile of Edmonton on the national and international scene.

Winspear Centre Box Office:
#4 Sir Winston Churchill Square
(780) 428-1414 or 1-800-563-5081
www.edmontonsymphony.com

Biography

Bruce Hangen is Director of Orchestral Activities at the Boston Conservatory, serving as the Conservatory’Äôs principal orchestral conductor as well as director of both the orchestra and conducting programs. The 2008/2009 season marked his 11th season as the Music Director of the Indian Hill Symphony. Recently, Mr. Hangen completed his tenure as the Principal Pops Guest Conductor of the Boston Pops. This position was created in May 2002 especially for Mr. Hangen, reflecting the strong musical relationship built over two decades of regular guest conducting. Other past positions include Music Director of the Omaha Symphony. From 1998 to 2000, he was Acting Resident Conductor of both the Utah and Kansas City Symphony Orchestras. Mr. Hangen was for ten seasons (1976-86) Music Director and Conductor of the Portland (Maine) Symphony; 1973-79 Associate Conductor of the Denver Symphony; 1975-79 Music Director of the Arapahoe Chamber Orchestra in Denver; six summer seasons (1966-72) Assistant Conductor of the Colorado Philharmonic.

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music with a major in conducting, Hangen was also a conducting fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood for two summers, where his conducting teachers included Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. His recent appearances have included concerts with the Florida Philharmonic and Boston Symphony as well as the orchestras of St. Louis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Naples (FL), and Houston. His repeat engagements with the Boston Pops and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestras alone totaled well over 200 performances since 1979. Mr. Hangen is the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of New England, and in Omaha he received the ICAN Foundation’Äôs 1990 Browning Award for Career Excellence and Vision. Bruce Hangen was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and was raised in Great Falls, Montana.

Mr. Hangen last appeared with the ESO in September, 2008.