The Bloomington Symphony Orchestra is serious about its music, but sometimes a bit silly with its titles. Their 42nd season borrows a line from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for the title "Life, the Universe, and Everything."
The Programs
Charles Latshaw is the orchestra's conductor. "For a season I put together seven possible programs," he explains, "and then take them to the music committee. We work through them considering things like difficulty, size of the orchestra and availability of soloists."
Each is built around a theme, Latshaw says, "but the actual titles come from our marketing committee, and they like have fun with them. With a season title from science fiction, they went on to call our children's concert To Infinity and Beyond. When we programmed an evening of Mozart, Brahms and Weber, they came up with Too-Tonic."
The BSO's opening concert also has a catchy title, Brasstissimo. "Yes," says Latshaw, "It is catchy, and it led to a great set of brass knuckles in the poster design from our pianist Stephen Torres. But it also points to the orchestration of the pieces by Glinka, Borodin and Respighi that we'll be playing."