WTS returns with Masterworks Series concert

MIDLAND Next week, the West Texas Symphony returns from a small break in the schedule to resume the 2022-23 season with its third concert in the Masterworks Series.

The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.

The concert will also be the annual spotlight event which highlights one of the orchestra’s top musicians. This year, bassoonist Philip Hill will be featured.

“Masterworks is always an exciting concert,” Hill said. “We just came off the highs of Nutcracker and our Christmas concert. Everyone is fresh off the holidays. It doesn’t matter what the program is, it’s just an electric feeling to get back into the swing of things and play for the community again.”

Hill is a principal bassoonist with the West Texas Symphony and a member of the West Texas Winds ensemble.

Accompanied by the orchestra, he will be opening the concert with a performance with Carl Maria von Weber’s “Bassoon Concerto in F Major, op. 75.”

This will be Hill’s first time playing a concerto with the West Texas Symphony.

“This is a standard work for the bassoon,” Hill said. “Supposedly, from one of the members of the orchestra who’s been here for a while mentioned that this might be the first time that the symphony has done a bassoon concerto at all. I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’ll find out at rehearsals.”

Known as a key figure in the development of German Romantic Opera, Weber had a short but significant career in music.

Composed in 1811 while he was in Munich, the work is a beloved part of the bassoon repertoire.

Weber lived from 1786-1826.

Hill says the piece is slightly different from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s own Bassoon Concerto which was written in 1774 and is often played by bassoon players in auditions to get into other symphonies across the country.

“The Mozart bassoon concerto is more standard because that piece was written first,” Hill said. “It’s also by a more standard and common composer. The Mozart concerto is often performed for auditions for bassoon seats in orchestras. Most bassoon students’ schooling involves learning the Mozart concerto. Most of us agree, it is more challenging to play Mozart, things have to be very refined and very elegant.”

However, that’s not to say that Weber is not elegant.

“As I’m revisiting the piece after not having played it for 10 years now, the challenge is to make it have different characters in it,” Hill said. “It’s more pompous and regal and noble than the Mozart so I want it to have that. I don’t want it to be entirely like a march or dance. The challenge is to blend the two and give it some elegance and some brightness that a bassoon sound can give it but also still retain that regal march-like sound to it.”

The other piece the orchestra will be playing is Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Symphony No. 104 in D Major.”

Haydn has the distinction of being credited with the creation of two genres: the symphony and the string quartet.

Composed in 1795 in London, the piece consists of four movements that vary from slow and serious to brisk, with a simple ending inspired by folk music.

“Haydn wrote quite a bit of symphonies so he gets the nickname the ‘Father of the Symphony,’” Hill said.

Hill earned his Master’s degree in music performance at the University of Arizona.

During his time at UA, he studied with William Dietz and was Principal Bassoon of the Arizona Symphony Orchestra. Hill was also in the Fred Fox Graduate Wind Quintet and the Saguaro Bassoon Ensembles.

He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Music Education at East Carolina University where he studied the bassoon under Christopher Ulffers and was Principal Bassoon of the ECU Symphony Orchestra.

Hill is currently an educator, holding a private teaching studio in the Permian Basin. He is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Texas Permian Basin and has been a resident artist at the University of Idaho, Youth Orchestras of Lubbock and Midland Montessori School.

After a busy December that featured numerous performances by the West Texas Symphony from its Christmas concert to “The Nutcracker” to the Lone Star Brass ensemble concert and various other performances, Hill says January has been a nice relaxing month for the orchestra.

They’ve had a few performances for school children around the area.

“January is always sort of a refresher,” Hill said. “We start January with our children’s concerts so when we do Masterworks at the start of February, it’s coupled also with playing stapled music from the orchestral repertoire for children at elementary schools that are bused in from the different schools in the area.”

He says it’s a great way to start the second half of the season.

“They get really excited because they get to skip school for a little bit and for us, it’s low pressure to play standard music. We play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. We play a little bit of William Tell Overture and The Firebird. Most kids have heard music like that before but they don’t know the name of the piece.”

The Masterworks Series will continue with “Rachmaninoff” on April 15.

That concert will feature Caroline Hong on piano as well as the UTPB Orchestra and local students.

The Pops and Family Series will resume on March 4 with Brad Leali on saxophone.

Leali is one of the most notable jazz saxophonists of current times. That concert will be a collaboration of jazz and orchestral music.

The season will conclude with another Pops and Family Series with “Back to the Future in Concert” on May 20.

March will also be a busy month with performances with the Midland Festival Ballet also on the schedule.

The West Texas Symphony is celebrating its 60th anniversary.

“With this being our sixth decade, we have a good exciting end for the rest of the season,” Hill said. “We’re going to have Brad Leali come in and play some jazz tunes for us. We’re collaborating with Midland Ballet again. We’re also doing a chamber concert which is something new to the schedule and Masterworks four is going to include Rochmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. That’s a side by side performance by the UTPB orchestra. That’s something we’ve done before but haven’t done in awhile. It’s great to collaborate with them. We’re going to end the season with ‘Back to the Future.’ It’s really fun and exciting music that’s coming up in the next few months. A lot of them are back to back. Normally, April is our busy month because of all the concerts and Easter. But it’s looking like March is going to be the busiest month because of the ballet and the chamber concert. It’s a lot but we’re excited. Anytime we have a concert come up, I wish we can do another concert the following weekend because our patrons are very loyal and we love performing for them.”

For more information about the West Texas Symphony or next week’s concert, go to tinyurl.com/4pfn7h8u.

If you go

  • What: West Texas Symphony Masterworks Series featuring Philip Hill.
  • When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4.
  • Where: Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
  • Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/nhjcdvam