OK Mozart Begins With A Bang Friday Night At Johnstone Park In Bartlesville
The 27th annual OK Mozart International Music Festival officially launches Friday evening with an Opening Night Celebration, this year at Johnstone Park in Bartlesville. The fun starts at 6 p.m. and everyone is invited, all free of charge of course. Attendees are urged to bring lawn chairs and dress casually for a festive night of entertainment.
“There will be music, prize giveaways you won’t want to miss, food vendors, face painting, clowns, and entertainment”, said Shane Jewell, Executive Director of OK Mozart. Featured are Tulsa Pipes and Drums with Boy Scout Color Guards, Paige Park and Family Band, Cherokee Children’s Choir, 145th Army Guard Concert Band and Shotgun Party. The evening ends with a bang-up fireworks grand finale under a beautiful Summer sky!
Saturday night the concerts begin, with “Sublime Strings” featuring Amici New York Orchestra’s concertmaster, Erica Kiesewetter and principal second violin, Robert Zubrycki. The special treat of the evening will be the performance of Haydn’s “Toy Symphony” with students from Bartlesville own Woodrow Wilson Elementary School joining Amici New York!
Adding much anticipation to this year’s Festival is the Grand Finale – “An Evening with Joshua Bell”. OKM’s resident orchestra, Amici New York, and guest conductor Gustav Meier will perform with Joshua Bell for what will be a truly memorable event.
Also appearing will be Turtle Island Quartet. Winner of the 2006 and 2008 GRAMMY® Awards in Best Classical Crossover category, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet esthetic with contemporary American musical styles. Join them for an evening of music featuring pieces taken from legendary guitarist, songwriter and performer Jimi Hendrix.
Lending additional excitement to this year’s Festival, Austin-based Hot Club of Cowtown. They have grown to be the most globe-trotting, hardest-swinging Western swing trio on the planet. Remaining willfully out of the musical mainstream, Hot Club of Cowtown have created an international cult following for their sonic personification of joy and unique sound inspired by their namesakes: “Hot Club” from the hot jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli’s Hot Club of France, and “Cowtown” from the Western swing influence of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
This year we want to take you back in time for a Day at the Movies. This experience is about how the movies used to be. Alloy Orchestra really helps us see what we’re watching and often the music, whether driving or fanciful, is worth listening to on its own. Using 13 differently tuned horseshoes, 157 plumbing pipes, pots, pans, junkyard findings and musical saws, as well as accordions, clarinets, keyboards and drums, Alloy Orchestra will accompany a screening of one of the greatest movies ever made, the silent film “The General” with Buster Keaton.
Rounding out OK MOZART’s Festival lineup will be the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The members of Carolina Chocolate Drops come from diverse musical backgrounds, sharing singing duties and swapping instruments throughout their sets. Employing a range of traditional string-band instruments — several banjos, a fiddle, a ceramic jug, bones and a kazoo, to name a few, band members are focused on a modern twist to traditional string folk music.
“We look forward to presenting one of the most exciting seasons ever in OK MOZART’s history, as well as hosting an ever-growing audience as a result of our efforts to expand the appeal of the concert series through a broader variety of programming, “ says Shane Jewell, Executive Director. .
Tickets are still available for the entire nine days of concerts at the Bartlesville Community Center Box Office. For more information go to www.okmozart.com or call 336-9800.
Updated 06-07-2011
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