NATCHITOCHES – The Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra will perform its annual Pops Concert Thursday, Nov. 8 at7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Dr. Douglas Bakenhus is music director of the Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony. The concert is a Louisiana Statehood Bicentennial Concert and will feature works by Louisiana composers Nettie Chenevert, Thomas Hundemer and Richard Rose.

Tickets are $10. Northwestern State University, BPCC@NSU and Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts students are admitted free with a current student I.D.

The program includes Grande Terre Overture by Chenevert, Acadian Songs and Dances from Louisiana Story by Virgil Thompson, Eine Kleine Cajunmusik from On Highways and Byways by Hundemer, Les Sauvages de America ‘Rondeau’ from Les Indes Galantes by Jean Philippe Rameau featuring soprano D'Nissa Hester, tenor Michael Rorex and the NSU Chorus and Louisiana Medley arranged by Rose featuring Louisiana, My Home Sweet Home, Give Me Louisiana and You Are My Sunshine.

The orchestra will also perform Evangeline: Two Cajun Songs arranged by Michael Story, SATCHMO! (A Tribute to Louis Armstrong) arranged by Ted Ricketts, The Dying Poet by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Mississippi Suite by Ferdie Grofe and the premiere of the Louisiana 1812 Overture by Rose.

‘The work starts as a musical sketch of Louisiana,’ said Rose, a former faculty member at Northwestern State. ‘As I wrote it, I thought of the hills between Natchitoches and Alexandria that are so green. The second part is my concept of the French influence in Louisiana and includesparts of the French national anthem La Marseallaise and as it fades out you feel the excitement of what is about to happen as Louisiana becomes a state. It builds up to sounds of celebration. The piece was fun to write, but not easy.’

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