WPO plays Rossini, Mozart for season opener
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WHAT: Warren Philharmonic Orchestra with Christopher Cicconi, conductor, and Geneva Maldonado, clarinet
WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: Christ Episcopal Church, 2627 Atlantic St. NE, Warren
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $30 for adults, $15 for students and free for children ages 13 and younger and will be available at the door. For more information, call 330-399-3606 or email warren.philharmonic@gmail.com.
Warren Philharmonic Orchestra will open its 2026-27 season with the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giaochino Rossini.
Christopher Cicconi, starting his third year as music director and conductor, said he picked music that would work for a smaller orchestral ensemble.
"Over the last two two years, I’ve really been listening to the musicians in the orchestra and really figuring out things that I know that they really want to do," he said. "The Warren Philharmonic was founded as a chamber orchestra. You’ve got a lot of other orchestras in that area that do full scale (masterworks). When we played in the spring, we did 'Appalachian Spring' and a Mozart concerto and Beethoven Six, and it was really well received. Even the audience was like, 'It was so nice to hear that intimate music again.' So I’m going to continue with that vain sort of a thought."
The concert will open with Rossini's overture to 'Don Giovanni," followed by his Introduction, Theme and Variations, featuring guest soloist Geneva Maldonado on clarinet. Maldonado is pursuing her doctorate in performance, pedagogy and literature at James Madison University, where Cicconi is director of bands and professor of wind conducting.
"She’s going to come up and play with the orchestra and solo on that Rossini piece," Cicconi said. "It’s highly virtuosic. People will love it. She’s just flying all over the clarinet, so that should be pretty spectacular."
Cicconi has worked with Maldonado on several occasions.
"She’s a virtuosic clarinet player, a young, upcoming clarinet player, and she’s played with orchestras in the area, things like that," he said. "But there’s two things I think that really resonate with her. One, she’s just a joy to work with. She’s easy to communicate with. She’s really wonderful to collaborate with. She’s super easygoing and is really up for any suggestions. And she just doesn’t miss. She really is the essence of consistency."
In addition to her solo, Maldonado will play in the woodwinds section throughout the performance.
The second half of the program will open with Rossini's overture to "Italian in Algiers" and the concert will conclude with Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
“'Italian in Algiers' is quintessential Rossini," Cicconi said. "People will know it when they hear it; they just won’t realize that’s what the piece was called. It’s a typical Rossini thing, where it starts nice and slow in this beautiful melody, and then man, it goes. I mean, it’s a real barn burner, and the woodwind parts especially are highly virtuosic."
Cicconi called Mozart's 40th his favorite symphony by the prolific composer.
"I get a lot of flack, because I really resonate with music in minor modes," he said. "Now, it ends not minor, but you follow this tonal journey from this G minor opening and then it gives this sort of heroic, major key ending. I love that kind of trajectory. Sometimes symphonies won’t do that. Things will just hang out in major (keys) for the most part. But I also don’t want to end on a downer.
"I’m a big proponent of color in the orchestra, and I like those darker colors in the first and second movement, then it gets bright in the third and in fourth movement. But it’s just so well crafted. It just shows how Mozart was so ahead of his time. It’s got beautiful phrase structures and all of that kind of stuff, but he does toy with different keys and different things, and he starts to push the envelope just a little bit with that symphony, which would then inspire people like Beethoven to do the same thing."
Saturday's concert will be at Christ Episcopal Church in Warren, and the season will conclude April 24 at Lakeview High School in Cortland.