Photo by Elizabeth Earl/Peninsula Clarion Sue Biggs (right) plays the fiddle with flautist Mi'shell French (right) during a noon concert on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016 at the Flats Bistro in Kenai, Alaska. Biggs and French join a host of other musicians playing daily concerts on the central and southern Kenai Peninsula for the annual Summer Music Festival, which features a variety of musicians from the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra as well as guest artists from Alaska and elsewhere.

Photo by Elizabeth Earl/Peninsula Clarion Sue Biggs (right) plays the fiddle with flautist Mi'shell French (right) during a noon concert on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016 at the Flats Bistro in Kenai, Alaska. Biggs and French join a host of other musicians playing daily concerts on the central and southern Kenai Peninsula for the annual Summer Music Festival, which features a variety of musicians from the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra as well as guest artists from Alaska and elsewhere.

Sweet sounds of summer

During recent rehearsals, Tammy Vollom-Marrurro told her violinists to play as horribly as possible.

The harsh, raking sound is an important part of the drama required for the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra’s piece of choice for the upcoming Summer Music Festival’s gala concert, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky.”

The piece, a cantata written for orchestra from the film soundtrack to the 1938 film by the same name, has strong imagery of battle scenes between the Russians and the Germans in the 13th century, including a scene during which German soldiers are lured out onto an icy lake in their heavy armor and fall through.

”You can hear the battle. You can hear the wind blowing. You can hear the ice cracking,” Vollom-Marrurro, the orchestra’s conductor, said. “It’s a pretty cool piece of music because it was written for a movie and adapted for an orchestra and choir.

“And I’m really excited about it. It’s a really strange piece of music in a way. It’s very powerful and then it’s very sad and then it’s very happy. It’s everywhere because it was part of a movie.”

“Alexander Nevsky,” a half-hour piece featuring both the orchestra and the community choir the Kenai Peninsula Singers, will follow two pieces by Russian composers Mily Balakirev and Alexander Borodin. A guest conductor, David Jacobs of the University of Oregon, will conduct Borodin’s piece, “Polovtsian Dances.”

Vollom-Marrurro said she met Jacobs during a conducting workshop she attended in Oregon. That workshop was also where she met several small groups from the Navy Band, the official musical group for the U.S. Navy.

“Part of the workshop was … we got to do a session with the winds and conduct them,” Vollom-Marrurro said. “I got to know the guy that’s in charge of the Navy winds and said they should come up to Alaska. And so they did.”

The Navy winds groups will join the annual event for the first time this year, playing free concerts on Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Christ Lutheran Church in Soldotna, on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Christian Community Church in Homer and on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Kenai Community Library in Kenai.

The evening concerts complement a raft of daily concerts all over the Kenai, Soldotna and Homer areas. A variety of groups will play daily concerts at noon in locations such as the Kenai Community Library, Odie’s Deli in Soldotna and Land’s End in Homer. The concerts began Monday and will run through Aug. 12, with the gala concerts scheduled for the evening of Aug. 12 at the Homer Mariner Theatre and Aug. 13 at Kenai Central High School’s Renee C. Henderson Auditorium, both at 7:30 pm.

One standby will return for the ninth year — the Madison String Quartet and friends, featuring Tony Cecere on the horn, Tomoka Raften on the flute and Mark Wolbers on the clarinet. The quartet will play a noon concert specifically targeted for kids at the Soldotna Public Library on Thursday and another at the Homer Public Library on Wednesday.

The gala concerts will feature a collaboration between the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra and the Kenai Peninsula Singers with the addition of a guest singer — Rehanna Thelwell of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Thelwell is a contralto, a woman with a lower-range singing voice, and will feature as the lead singer for a section of “Alexander Nevsky.” She will sing a section of the piece called “Fields of the Dead,” Vollom-Marrurro said.

“In the movie, they’re kind of walking around looking for survivors,” she said. “It’s this very mournful, sad sound.”

For a full schedule of events, visit the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra’s website at kpoalaska.com. Tickets for the gala concerts can be purchased at the Homer Bookstore in Homer, at River City Books in Soldotna and at the door.

Reach Elizabeth Earl at elizabeth.earl@peninsulaclarion.com.

More in Life

This Korean rice porridge, called dak juk, is easy to digest but hearty and nutritious, perfect for when you’re learning how to eat. (Photo by Tressa Dale/Peninsula Clarion)
A comforting meal for new beginnings

Rice porridge is a common first solid meal for many, many babies around the world

file
Minister’s Message: The sound of God’s voice

In all my desperate prayers, I sometimes forget that God has spoken definitively already

Rivers and Ice by Susan Pope. (Promotional photo)
KPC Showcase to feature discussion with Alaska author Susan Pope

Pope will discuss her memoir “Rivers and Ice: A Woman’s Journey Toward Family and Forgiveness”

Promotional photo courtesy Sony Pictures
Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor appear in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.”
On the Screen: New ‘Ghostbusters’ struggles to balance original ideas and nostalgia

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” picks up right where “Afterlife” left off, and it also succumbs to a lot of the same problems

document from ancestry.com
William Raymond “W.R.” Benson’s draft-registration card from 1942 reveals that he was 52 years old, living in Seward and self-employed. His wife, Mable, is listed as a person who will always know his address.
Hometown Booster: The W.R. Benson Story — Part 2

W.R. Benson was a mover and a shaker throughout his life, but particularly so in Alaska

Terri Zopf-Schoessler and Donna Shirnberg rehearse “The Odd Couple: The Female Version” at the Kenai Performers’ Theater near Soldotna, Alaska, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
‘Iconic, classic comedy’

Kenai Performers debuts “The Odd Couple: The Female Version”

Photo provided by Sara Hondel
Sara Hondel stands with a leprechaun during Sweeney’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Soldotna on Sunday. Green, leprechauns and Nugget the Moose poured down the streets for the 34th annual parade hosted by the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce. Under cloudy skies — but fortunately no precipitation — a procession of viridescent celebrants representing businesses and organizations brought festivities to an array of attendees lining Redoubt Avenue.
Go green or go home

Soldotna turns out for St. Patrick’s Day parade

Eggplants, garlic, lemon juice and tahini make up this recipe for baba ghanouj. (Photo by Tressa Dale/Peninsula Clarion)
When making a good example is hard to swallow

Preparing baba ghanouj despite a dislike of eggplant

William Raymond “W.R.” Benson (front row, far right) poses along with the rest of the Sigma Nu fraternity at Albion College in Michigan in about 1908. Despite a lifetime spent in the public eye, Benson was apparently seldom captured on film. This image is one of the few photos of him known to exist. (photo from the 1908 Albion College yearbook via ancestry.com)
Hometown Booster: The W.R. Benson Story — Part 1

W.R. Benson was a man almost constantly in motion

Most Read