Mighty 5® Tour
On the night of Aug. 13, Thierry Fischer had a chance to relax a bit in the audience, listening to a brass quintet of the orchestra. It also gave him a chance to reflect on the performance he conducted the night before. Here are his thoughts.

Tonight I had the pleasure of sitting in the audience at a gorgeous location inside Dead Horse State Park (outside of Moab) and listening to a brass quintet of our musicians perform a number of short pieces. Like our first night in Teasdale Community Park, ominous rain clouds hung overhead and lightning crackled in the distance. Unlike that first night, however, I was able to sit back, relax, and just listen.

The orchestra played exceptionally well Tuesday, despite harsh and unpredictable conditions–it was windy, rainy, and cold. As the light sprinkling of rain turned to a downpour during intermission, we played on, spurred on and united by the energy rising from the enthusiastic crowd of about 1,100. I got wet–as did several musicians–but I didn’t care; I was sweating under the exertion of conducting and the heat from the overhead stage lights anyway.
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Mighty 5® Tour
As reported earlier, the Utah Symphony embarked on Aug. 12 for a tour of five national parks in southern Utah. Music Director Thierry Fischer has agreed to jot down his thoughts about the trip along the way. Here is his first installment.

I arrived at Teasdale Community Park (several miles on the outskirts of Capitol Reef National Park) on Aug. 12 shortly before 7 p.m.–just one hour before our first full orchestra concert. Dark thunderclouds gathered, the wind was blowing, and lightning struck in the distance. But there was a double rainbow arced over the red sandstone cliffs of Capitol Reef and I was awestruck by the majestic beauty of it all.
I felt exhilarated by the evening that lay before us.
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Biography   Q&A
The Nielsen cycle is the third cycle I have planned with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Cycles have played, and continue to play, a very significant role for the orchestra in past and present seasons.

When I first planned a Beethoven cycle, performed in the course of the last two seasons with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, I knew it was going to be a challenge. We performed the cycle in reverse order, as there is a more creative complexity that way, given the acrobatic demands of the early classical-style symphonies. One result was that the cycle provided a musical frame, and created a mood for all of us. It did not make the orchestra feel constrained by the work of a single composer; on the contrary it made it more open and receptive to the other repertoire in the season.

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